Interview with Author Gary Vanucci

Today, we welcome my Twitter friend and author of the Realm of Ashenclaw fantasy series, Gary Vanucci.

Hi, Gary!

How did you get into writing? 

I heard voices in my head wanting me to tell the world about them of course? How else does one choose to write!? Just kidding…I think. In all seriousness, I felt like I had a very cool story to tell, one that I would want to read as a fan of fantasy, and so I decided to toss my hat into the ring. So far, so good.

What's the earliest story you can remember writing? 

I told a story in the 5^th or 6^th grade about a rock star who made a deal with the devil to be rich and famous. Needless to say, things did not work out so well. I wish I still had it. It was called ‘The Electrocutioner’. That’s the first real story I wrote.

When did you decide to make the move to "published"? 

Right away. I decided to go the indie route first without even trying to find representation. EBooks have made it very easy to get your work out there. Of course, now everyone is doing it, so it takes time for readers to sift through all of the other stuff to find you. It is what it is. I feel that I am offering fans of fantasy a truly epic storyline with several twists and turns and plenty of high-powered battles, along with some real emotional growth in the characters. It may not seem that way at first, but if you read all three of my books, you will begin to notice it.

How did you find the experience of seeking a publisher? 

I did not…yet. I want to develop my own fan-base, get a following and hone my skill before pursuing an agent. Reason being, who is to say that one person’s work is better than another’s or going to ‘make it’ and whatnot. It is a real stroke of luck to become a J.K. Rowling. Even she was very close to quitting. Can you imagine a life without Harry Potter?

What books have most influenced your life most? 

I enjoy Sci-Fi, Horror, and Superheroes and of course, Fantasy. When I read, I do so to escape reality, even if it is only for a few hours at a time. But really, that is what I use it for. Some people watch TV or whatever, I try to read to escape reality. I have found some extremely cool friends in the Forgotten Realms and Melnibone and several other places.

What book are you reading now? 

I am reading Ross Kitson’s Darkness Rising Book 1, Jeremy Laszlo’s The Choosing and listening to George Martin’s A Storm of Swords on audio book! Yep, three at a time.

What are your current projects? 

I am currently writing book 4 of my Realm of Ashenclaw series, continuing the epic sage of my heroes as they continue to preserve the lives of the innocent folks in Wothlondia. I have a new short story coming out also with the guys from Skulldust Circle. We have collectively written an anthology, (all from our own worlds, not a collective world thing) and mine is the Legend of Ashenclaw (A colossal Red Dragon Queen whom the realm is named after)

How important is the support and friendship of other writers? 

Very important! I have gotten a ton of support from other indie authors out there who have been tremendously supportive! I mean truly helpful. I actually have received more support from people I don’t even know personally on social media than I get from actual friends sometimes…which I suppose may be odd. But, for whatever reason, it seems to work. I would like to take this opportunity as a matter of fact, to thank those supportive people on twitter and Facebook, and everyone who has purchased a book from me and/or written a review! Thanks to you all! I wanted to specifically mention the Independent Author Network and the World Literary Café specifically as amazing support in the Independent author field.

How does your family feel about your writing career?

My family is supportive for the most part. I wish some of them would get a bit more involved in the reading and the beta-reading, but for the most part, they try to help out where they can. They’ve all got their own things going on, too, so I understand that. I don’t expect much from them other than that. As long as they continue to give words of encouragement, that’s all that I can ask, right?

~*~

Gary Vanucci was born in Pennsylvania in 1968. He enjoys writing, reading, music, art, anything at all that promotes creativity and activities that push the mind beyond conventional thinking. He has spent time as an amateur singer/songwriter and has spent multiple decades creating role-playing scenarios and playing games amongst various genres. Years of reading graphic novels, comic books, fantasy/science fiction novels and the like has led him to discover his true passion—writing! His education includes a Bachelor’s of Science in the field of Information Technology and an Associates of Arts in the field of Graphic Design.

Find him at:
Twitter / Facebook / Website / Blog / Amazon

Truth

I read an Indie (aka Self-Published) novel recently. I can't say it was good. It kind of wasn't. The writing was on par for some of my mid-range students. The formatting was atrocious, and the errors numerous, and, through the unhappy combination of the two, most of the sentences and paragraphs read like they'd been through a blender. I had to read a lot of the bits multiple times to understand them. So it wasn't great.

But, yet, something about it stuck with me.

I appreciate beautiful writing. Normally, typos and grammatical errors can pull me right out of the book, and this book was no different. But, the overall feel didn't dissipate for some time afterwards. With better execution and editing, it might have been a great book.

But I'm not really writing about the grammar here, but about that Other Thing that caught my attention.

Truth.

Now, having been in the university system as long as I have, I know Truth is an iffy word for me. Capital-T Truth - does it exist? Likely not, on the grander scale. But, I think for authors it does.

There were moments in this book when the author showed genuine, fearless Truth. Glimpses of himself. Real, honest, raw insights into his childhood, which was the kind no one should have to endure.

I don't know, perhaps all of that emotion and honesty got in the way of the technical aspects of his writing. I could understand that. It happens to all of us, even when we aren't writing such harrowing tales (which is why I thank the heavens for objective editors).

What is this thing, authorial Truth?

For me, it's when I feel like I am no longer reading a book by a stranger, but hearing the intimate, confessional whispers of someone close by. Some of the best authors can make you feel this way through the most fantastic fictions; others through unflinching recounting of their real history. But, as a reader, you feel it to the marrow. You are sucked into the most painful empathy. When the author-as-child cries out, you know the author still feels that cry, and you feel it, too. This, to me, is Truth.

There have been brief moments when I have written my own Truth.

Even in some of my published works, I can see the honesty, crouched and veiled to my satisfaction. Sometimes, too much honesty, and I am grateful most of my readers don't know me personally, because I wouldn't be that honest with people I actually know in real life. I don't write about true events in my published works (so far), but I write about things I've actually felt, and I can see it lurking around the edges of my characters' minds.

But, for the most part, I do flinch. I protect, I huddle, and I hoard my Truth. It wouldn't be too far off the mark to call me Standoffish. My personality is generally, "Friend to all, close to none." I wasn't born under a poker table, but I should have been.

This book, for all its glaring errors, made me ask myself why that should be. Is that what's missing from my books? Would they be better if I didn't edit out so much Truth? Will these new projects, some of them extremely close to me, be better if I stop being so guarded?

Can I summon the courage?

It's hard to tell, but I thank that author for his honesty and Truth, and for making me ask these questions. Writers are blessed people. We have so much productivity in our profession from which to draw such questions, thoughts, rambles. I found some in a rather unlikely place, this time, which ennobled the book in my eyes, whatever the style. Beauty can be more than just the lines, I think.

Long live Truth.

We Interrupt Your Scheduled Blog Post...

I was going to write about submissions today, but something else caught my attention several times this week, so I wanted to post a little on the subject of writer scams.

Writer scams are everywhere online - they predate the Internet, but have really exploded in recent years. Why do they work? Simple - when you are a new writer with plenty of dreams, it can feel really overwhelming to get your book out in front of people. Agents take forever, if you even get replies from them, and Big Publishers even longer, and most of us have little or no training/experience with publishing before we finish that first book/collection. And scammers know this, and they know how to talk to us in the right way to prey on those hopes and dreams.

Probably the premier, most famous form of writer scams would be vanity presses - those who promise "Become a Real Author!" (but only if you send them a cheque for $1200). Here's the skinny, folks - if it's a real publisher THEY PAY YOU, not the other way around. This is vastly different from Self Publishing, in which an author pays for services (cover art, editing, etc), but ultimately owns their own work. A vanity press really does nothing for your book but stroke your ego and take your money - lots of it. And they don't give it back. Now, with Amazon/KDP/CreateSpace, I hope we are hearing the dying howl of the vanity presses, but it's not likely. Many more aspiring authors will fall to them before they go away, sadly.

And now with the rise of agents who "facilitate" self-publishing, there might be a whole new racket for vanity press scammers. This is not to say that all agents who handle self-pubbing are crooks, but any day now we'll start seeing the crooks move that way, if they haven't already.

The Rule is: Except for putting together a self-publishing project, the author's only dealings with cheques should be signing the back of their royalties.

The second big one is Contests! Yes, there are many, many legitimate writing contests out there, with real prizes and good exposure. Some, like the RWA, do charge writers to enter. (I personally don't pay to enter contests, but paid contests might not be scams, so just do your research.) However, not all contests are legitimate. If it's a free contest, you don't stand to lose much but time, but please save yourself the hassle of entering fake/worthless contests with hefty entrance fees. Also, in many regions, it is illegal to force entrants to "buy the finalists' collection" at the end of a poetry or short story contest. Such things are scams, where they basically let everyone become a finalist so more people will be forced to buy the resulting collection. Do the leg work! Research the contest before you get excited.

Third, there are the newer vultures circling the small press/indie world: Book reviewers who are also editors. Now, naturally, many reviewers also offer editing services, and not all are scams. What I mean are book reviewers who offer to review your book (especially a self-pubbed one) merely so they can tell you it stinks - but, don't worry! "I can edit it for you for $1000!" That's the scam part. I believe many reputable editors who also do reviews make it policy not to take editing jobs from the authors they have reviewed, and vice versa. The reviewer may very well suggest you need an editor, but they are often careful to suggest OTHER editors, instead of themselves. Otherwise, it's a bit of a conflict of interest, don't you think?

Most legitimate editors allow a sampling process - you send them a sample, and they will edit it and return it, before you engage them. If you go this route, it might be a good idea to send the same sample to several editors, and compare the returned work before making a selection. And, in my opinion, accept a reviewers' suggestion that you need editing, but don't hire that reviewer to do it. Sample a few others, and then decide which way to go. As always: Author word-of-mouth is a great way to find what you need, and it's the safest way.

Then, on top of these sly jobs, we also have the occasional rumour/allegation of truly shocking instances of out-n-out extortion. There are also people burned outright by paying upfront for covers that never come, or editors that never deliver.

The above categories cover the majority of the pitfalls out there; some are ubiquitous, while others a bit less common. There are many other ways a newbie writer can lose buckets of money/time/hope/energy/reputation - ghost town sites/blogs charging for ad space, reviewers demanding payment for their condescension, display sites that charge you for profiles that no one ever visits, small pubs who are basically beards for one author's self-publishing activities, etc, etc, but those aren't truly "scams" in that they are offering some type of service, at least, and you get exactly what they promise (even if it is lackluster). And you should know what you're getting into before you hand over the money or your manuscript (always).

The Internet is a wonderful thing for the global writers' community - it brings us closer than ever before, allows for multiple genre circles to form and disseminate information very quickly, and evens the communication exchange between experienced writers and aspiring authors. But it also contains snakes of all varieties. Use it wisely - arm yourself with information, do your research, and treat your name, money and manuscript like the precious resources that they are.

So, that's my little PSA for today.

It's a jungle out there! Good luck.

Help! Another Identity Crisis

I've seen these two terms chucked around, "Indie" and "Traditional." Now, I know these terms are rife with some controversy, since they were (according to interwebs lore) first coined by a shady vanity press in order to glamorize their scam. Yet, regardless of how the categories started, they have been widely adopted in the "writing world" - or, at least, in that corner which I haunt.

I have always understood it to be a matter of scale.

"Traditional" publishers, in my understanding, included the Big Companies - the brick-n-mortar, advance-granting, agent-oriented, paperback-lovin' companies that market/sell internationally and make big bucks, and all those mid-range companies run on this model in hopes of being one of the Big Publishers. We can all name several of these off the top of our heads, no doubt.

"Indie" (short for "independent") publishers, I assumed, included the small scale publishers - micropresses and self-published authors who have a smaller distribution and privately-seeded marketing budget, no agents and no advances, but royalties from sales alone. Largely, these days, this means epublishing.

This week I ran into a handful of blog comments that claimed "indie" doesn't include self-published. But, this sentiment I easily disregarded as indie authors who, foolishly, have bought into the idea that self-published means vanity publishing and terrible quality. These comments were, after all, left on a now-fairly-famous so-so review to which the regrettably deficient self-published author under review left some awful, immature and petty ravings, involving the senseless repetition of expletives. I can see why people were scrambling to distance themselves from her.

However, I then came across something a little more puzzling, and not exactly unique - and from a source I can't so easily dismiss. From a NY Times bestselling author and writer of "how to write" pieces, Bob Mayer, it was hard to ignore. This quote, which was not the gist of his point (just what struck me), is from the June 12th post on his blog Write it Forward:

I use the term indie for one who self-publishes and trad for those who are published via a traditional publishing house. I’ve copyrighted them and you need to pay me any time you use them. Joking.

True, Mayer is clearly expressing his terms as he sees them for the purposes of his post, which is an otherwise considered and useful editorial. Yet, he is not the only person defining these terms this way, and I am confused.

I consider myself an "indie author," though it seems many people do not grant me this category. However, I am not really published through a "traditional" venue, either. So, what the hell am I?

First off, why do I consider myself "indie"? Well, frankly, my publishers thus far have been pretty independent - without a big corporate source of money, no advances, requiring no agents, not having a publishing "house" as such, and focusing largely on ebooks, they seem to me to be small-scale and, therefore, not the same as those commonly recognized as traditional. They are, I believe, independently owned and operated by individual publishing entrepreneurs. I don't even think they have investors beyond their owners/managing editors.

And why am I seemingly not "indie"? Because I do publish through companies not belonging to me that employ editors not controlled by me, and, especially, because I do not "self-publish." I guess. (Insert "head scratching" emoticon here.)

Now, I suspect the easy argument is that these companies could become traditional-scale in time, and that Harper-Collins might have started out as a micropress (I really couldn't tell you if it did or not, actually). Also, more obscurely, the concern might be that these publishers, be they ever so humble, might be creatures similar to the "gatekeepers" that indies dislike so strongly, and that signing with these epubs might be "compromising my artistic vision" in a way that self-pubbed writers don't have to. Finally, I reckon the royalties thing is the kicker - as long as a middle man is getting a cut, I guess (according to some) I am not truly "independent."

Well, colour me confused. I can understand the arguments and points above, but they never occurred to me naturally. I had to ponder them.

But, the point of all this is - Even if I concede that I am not "indie" (which I don't, really), I am left with a dilemma. What am I? In this recurring rhetoric of "indie" vs "traditional"... which am I? Am I an "us" or a "them"? In a greyzone, worthy of the attention of neither?

True, we shouldn't think in those terms of narrow categories, but such is what we have to work with in the seedy underbelly of starving author forums. So, where do I land?

It would just be nice to know.