REVISITING: Interview with Paul E. Cooley

The following is approximately 35 minutes of the 70 minute interview. Scott Pond sits down with Paul E. Cooley to discuss his work as an author and the current state of publishing.

Scott: “Hello everyone. I’m Scott Pond from Scott Pond Design Studios. Today I’m sitting down with one of the current innovators in the New Media movement: the Fiend Master himself, Paul E. Cooley. We’re both taking a break from the Balticon 46 festivities to talk about his literary career. First off, Paul, I’d like to thank you for taking some time out of your busy Balticon panel schedule to sit down with me.”

Paul: “My pleasure, Scott. I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Scott: “From a high level standpoint, if you were to encapsulate it in a few sentences, how would you describe yourself?”

Paul: “Let’s see. A writer. Software developer. General menace to society. I’m very interested in tech, literature, sociology, and politics. I’m basically trying to be a better human being and failing miserably at it. [laughter]

Scott: “Kind of like the rest of us…” [laughter]

Paul: “I’m constantly in the pursuit of self improvement and excellence and failing miserably. I guess in a nutshell that’s who I am and what I’m about. Just trying to tear the creatures out of my brain and trying to make something interesting out of them. That’s pretty much it I guess. Kind of boring.”

Scott: “Not really. If you look at it, it’s actually pretty multifaceted. If you deal with any creative type, they are typically not a single track creative type.”

Paul: “I think the more varied you are, it’s best. I really think the software development side kind of tempers the writing side and vice versa. Since I live in both worlds I think code and writing kind of interweave together and try to bring approaches from one to the other. I think that works for me pretty well. It’s certainly improved my writing. I mean, I took a long break from writing after I had a fight with an agent.”

Scott: “When was this?”

Paul: “I wrote a book called ‘The Abyss Also Looks’ which will probably never ever see the light of day. Ever, ever, ever see the light of day. An agent was interested in it and then basically tried to bait and switch me to a professional editorial service that was going to cost hundred and hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Karry and I were broke, living in this run-down fucking apartment complex in Colorado. We had barely two pennies to scrape together. But this was my dream for getting published.”

“So we went back and said, look, I can’t afford this. Let me work on it. Tell me what needs to change and we’ll get back to you. So we changed it, did all this editing, worked our asses off. We spent a month on it and then sent it back in. I got a rejection letter two weeks later saying that yes, the book was better but we asked around and nobody wants it. I was like, ‘you know what, fuck you, I’m never writing again.’ So I stopped writing for a good ten or twelve years. I really didn’t get back into it until I discovered Scott Sigler. It was about a year after that that I started writing again.”

Scott: “What about discovering Sigler sparked you again?”

Paul: “It was the podcast. It was the ability to get the writing out there, getting comments. It was the instant gratification of getting the stuff out there and getting feedback very fast. It was a distribution channel that just didn’t exist before. Before you had to pass through the gatekeepers and the gatekeepers wanted what the gatekeepers wanted. And they still do. So it was a way to get around them and do really cool things. The more I started getting into it, the more podcast fiction I started seeing. People are doing some very interesting stuff as far as genre mashups. They’re writing non-conventional stories that are almost experimental. And they are good.”

Scott: “Like Jake Bible’s drabble approach?”

Paul: “Exactly, yeah, stuff like that, being able to do those kind of things in whatever format you want to do. You know, it’s crazy to say this, but basically it’s like taking some of the more schizophrenic tenants of literature, what’s going on in mainstream lit if you want to get all pedantic about it. The kind of shit that shows up in the college papers or magazines—you know the ones I’m talking about, university magazines or what not—we’re taking those elements that are considered avant-garde and putting them into genre fiction.

Scott: “Into mainstream fiction, if you will.”

Paul: “Exactly. It’s been very interesting. You can’t do that anywhere else. You just can’t do it. The podcast stuff allows you to go absolutely shit-bat-bonkers-crazy. We can do radio style scripts. We can do movie style and read them aloud without a movie track. You’ve got things like ‘Leviathan Chronicles’ where you’ve got the whole music setup and everything else…”

Scott: “Full-cast productions…”

Paul: “Yeah, you know, full cast, and it is like making a movie in that way. You’ve got guys like Dan Sawyer who do the full cast and do it very well and make an excellent product. And all this shit’s for free. It’s just because people love doing it. They’d love to get paid for it, want to get paid for it ultimately. The expectation is that I have to give a way free content in order to get the listeners to ultimately, hopefully, have them buy something. It’s a great way to do that and before the podcast stuff came out and the eBook stuff came out there was no way to do this.”

“And so it’s been fantastic to look at. Considering at college I ran a BBS—you know, a bulletin board system… oh my God that was a long time ago—that was online fiction. I was absolutely convinced that it was the future, that we were actually going to have stories online. I was just about fifteen years ahead of my time. But I saw the writing on the wall and everyone told me I was crazy. But here it has come. When the podcast thing came around I was like ‘holy shit this is what I wanted to do with BBS but we didn’t have any bandwidth.’ There was no way to get a lot of advertising out there. There was much of a way to do these things.”

“The technology has really come along. It’s now cheap, relatively cheaper. You don’t have to be a technical wiz to do this stuff. The world has just massively changed. Those of us who change with it and take advantage of what it’s got are basically forging what the future is for better or worst. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to insert myself into that chaos and see what I could do.”

Scott: “Based on what you are saying as far as your literary history goes, obviously there are a lot of feelings toward traditional publishers. We see it in all the panels here. All these aspiring writers have been stepped on by the big and small publishers…”

Paul: “oh yeah, there’s a lot of vitriol.” [laughter]

Scott: “in the pursuit of getting published. Looking at the overall approach—and I think Sigler takes this approach as well—if you look at traditional publishing, it’s the ‘if we build it they will come’ approach. So this is more along the lines of you needing to invest first into your potential audiences before they are even going to bother to invest in you.”

“You have to find a way to differentiate yourself from the rest that’s out there. It can be the graphics or the name of your podcast, for God’s sake. It can be the way you read, the types of stories that you write. But the bottom-line is that you have to go out there and grab the audience. Once you grab enough of them, it builds because people talk about it online and the online community is very incestuous. So pretty soon it just starts gravitating upwards and you reach critical mass. Once you have a thousand listeners you’re like ‘holy crap, I’ve made it!’”

“But it’s a very different style of approach than traditional media. There are guys like Joe R. Lansdale, who should be a superstar; but he’s not really known by all that many people. He’s written some of the most avant-garde horror stuff out there for the last 30 or forty years. But big publishers have never really wanted him. He’s always been a small-press guy. He does his book tours and they are always packed because people who know who he is love his work. But he doesn’t know anything about this new stuff. In fact he just recently got a Facebook page. Still has no website (note: this is incorrect. Mr. Lansdale has a site at http://joerlansdale.com/). He doesn’t get this New media and he’s sixty something for God’s sake…”

Scott: “And he may not get it unless he has some to help guide him.”

Paul: “Right, and his son is helping him form what I can tell. But the bottom line it’s older authors who are already out there that are ‘established’ who are going to have a more difficult time dragging themselves forward into what we’re doing because they don’t understand it. Those that have—and we’re not talking about machines like Stephen King who have a whole cadre of people handling shit for him—we talking about guys like a little dude in east Texas—deep east Texas, talks with a drawl and the whole nine yards—for these guys it’s a different universe.”

 “Writers that are in the New Media wave, we have a different approach, we understand the economics differently. We’re in it for the long haul. It’s always long tail. The new writers, like those on the panels this morning, there are still many of them that don’t get it. They don’t understand the problem with publishing today and what it’s turned into. Everybody still wants this six-figure advance bullshit…”

Scott: “The Grail…”

Paul: “Yeah, they want the dream. Everybody’s got the dream that they are going to write the best seller and going to be famous and invited on talkshows. I’m going to have megabucks in the bank. Bullshit. It doesn’t happen. Unless you are one of those A-List guys or those A-List women. It’s fads and unless you are one of those who write to the fads very effectively. But I think the majority of us in New Media aren’t doing that. We’re doing what we do. I write what I write. I could probably write trope fiction but I’m not going to. If I do it’ll be parody. Big time. And making so much fun of the genre that it’ll be just wrong.”

Scott: “And of course, you don’t write parody at all…?” [sarcasm]

Paul: “No I don’t do parody at all.” [laughter] “Poor Sesame Street never knew what was coming. But I do think that’s really cool. See, I could never have done ‘The Street’ because not major publisher would ever get behind that shit. It’s that ability to play and do something completely off the wall and have people go ‘that was sick and fucked up… when are you giving me more of it.’ That’s what really drew me to the whole idea of the New Media and electronics. The technology has finally reached where I thought it was going to reach years and years ago. It just took a long time to get there.”

Scott: “That’s really an interesting observation. If you look 70 years ago, 80 years ago, at technology then compared to technology now, and you look at the branching of genres it almost seems as though technology really opens the doors for the niche cultures and subgroups to find the places that they belong better than the mainstream traditional genres, such as horror, drama…”

Paul: “Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think I’ve said this before in the podcast. What really annoyed me before Borders went out of business—and mark my words, Barnes and Noble will be there before a year or two—was when I walked in there and discovered the horror section was down to three shelves and it was all vampire, zombie, werewolf bullshit.”

Scott: “Like Stephanie Meyers?”

Paul: “Yeah, exactly. Yeah, all Stephen King’s and Dean R. Coontz stuff and then there’s nothing but this shit. It was terrible. They have so narrowly defined the genre now that there’s only so many things that fit there. And the rest of the genres? Sigler’s not in horror. Sigler’s in thriller. Sigler’s in mystery, for God’s sake because they don’t know what to do with him. Or they put him in general fiction.”

Scott: “Because he doesn’t fit the traditional niche.”

Paul: “Right. Because he’s got hard science fiction that he’s mixing with ‘ooo-ahh’ that’s gross, disgusting horror. He’s definitely found a niche for that. That’s where we have problems finding readers in the traditional way of doing things because you can’t easily shelve us into those genres; we don’t fit very easily. And there are authors like Joe Hill, who’s Stephen Kings son, who, for obvious reasons, had a lower barrier to entry. That’s not to discount him as a writer; he’s a fantastic writer. But ‘Something Like Horns,’ which is almost a magical realism mixed with horror, that would never fly before. But he did something and actually got a publisher and I don’t know if that has to do with the fact that he’s Stephen King’s son.”

Scott: “It couldn’t have hurt.”

Paul: “Yeah, right, exactly. But the bottom line is that I don’t see a book like that getting published 10 years ago. Not without knowing that he’s Stephen King’s son and also his ‘Locke and Key’ graphic novel series, which has been very popular. And that’s also jumping media and everything else around there. More and more of us are think about how we can take these fucked up stories and put them to graphic novels or make comic books out of them. Scott Sigler is dipping his toes into that now. We’ve got a number of other authors who are talking about doing it as well. The other good thing about this whole New Media thing is we have people like you who are artwork guys who want to hang out and help and do everything else. And you’re creative and badass. We have audio folks who do crazy stuff like create music for the hell of it and basically hand it out to the podcasters at will. You’ve got people lining up to say ‘I’d love to be a voice actor in your next production because I love what you do.’ You’ve got listeners who sit there and say ‘how can I help you get stuff done?’

Scott: “For free…”

Paul: “For free, exactly.”

Scott: “… because they want to be part of the magic and the machine.”

Paul: “All because they want to be part of the magic and the machine. I think that’s a really big difference between the mills that the corporations run and what we’re doing on our own. I think that’s what makes it so damn exciting to be part of it.”

Scott: “What you are basically doing is forming a subfamily or an extended family.”

Paul: “Yeah, and it’s incestuous as hell.” [laughter]

Scott: “Yes it is.” [laughter]

Paul: “It’s crazy, you know. I’ll have you in my podcast next week to read some part for something and then two weeks later I’m on your pilot podcast for an interview or we’re doing reviews or we get together on a show to make fun of something else. It’s completely bonkers. And it’s fantastic. It’s wonderful.”

Scott: “And it works.”

Paul: “Yeah, and it works. Exactly. And if I’m on a podcast, and I have a good day that day, chances are that my book sales are going to bump. All because people don’t know who I am, they want to go find out who I am, they’ll go and try it. And if they like it, hopefully they will go buy another one. But at the very least they’re going to slot my podcast and see what the hell I’m about. That kind of thing goes on back and forth. If I put that interview in my feed, suddenly my listeners know that show exists and they’re going to go after that and say, ‘wow, that was a cool episode, I wonder who else they’ve got on there.’ So it just bounces around all over the place. It used to be the promos that got people. You’d hear something—that’s how I discovered Phil Rossi’s ‘Crescent’ for instance was on Scott Sigler’s podcast. It bounces around like that but really it’s the interplay between the New media creators and content creators is what drags the audience, leads them by the nose: ‘hey I like this guy and he talked great about this so I’ll go check this out since this bastards out of content next week.”

[laughter]

Paul: “So, it really makes a big difference. And you could not have done that in traditional media. It’s impossible.”

Scott: “What I think is awesome from a listener’s standpoint is the cross-collaboration aspect. For example you getting into Sigler’s GFL universe…”

Paul: “Yes.”

Scott: “… and playing in that. What’s fantastic is that everyone can actually be able to play in each other’s sandboxes, without having to deal with anthologies, and the restrictive legal aspects, and all that other crap. You can actually provide a different voice and further enrich that particular universe even more so.”

Paul: “One would hope.” [laughter] “ but yeah, I think that’s another great thing. P. G. Holyfield, for example, had his ‘Land of Caern: Tales of the Children.’ You had Mur Laffterty’s offshoot of ‘Playing for Keeps.’ You had, uh…”

Scott: “Hutchins’ ‘Obsidian.’”

Paul: “You have things like that just going off crazy all over the place where someone would create a framework and then invite others to come play. That has really been a great thing. P. C. Haring would probably not have as nearly as many listeners for ‘Cybrosis’ if he hadn’t written a ‘Crypt’ story for Sigler. I know I got quite a bump from my ‘Crypt’ story I wrote with Scott. Those things really make a difference when you are able to do that. Hopefully one of these days I’ll have a universe I’ll feel okay with inviting people into my sandbox once I get all of the rules figured out.”

Scott: [laughter] “You gotta define the rules first.” [laughter]

Paul: [laughter] “Now you see, there’s the problem. When I’m dealing with such a long historical arc (with ‘Garaada’s Children’), it’s really, really difficult to have someone come play in that right now. Especially since I don’t have any developed characters that can pop up because it’s such a long history. I’m hopeful that someday I’ll be able to say ‘how would you like to write a story for me?’ I think that would be really cool to do, would be really awesome. I would really enjoy doing that and seeing what people come up with. But the fact we can do that is what’s really amazing. We don’t have to fight with publishers. We don’t have to fight with editors. Basically I created this and now I’m going to pay you to come play in my sandbox but here’s my rules you’re going to have to follow or I’ll kill you. Or I’ll just rewrite your shit, that’ll happen too.” [laughter]

“It’s just there’s no massive legal contracts. There’s no humongous diatribe about ‘hey, I don’t like that guy, he’s with another publisher and therefore we can’t deal with him.’ That’s bullshit. We don’t have to deal with any of that. We basically have control and we do it however we want and what works best. That is really what’s key in how this is going to evolve. I think we’re still in the swirling vat of chaos and I have no idea what it’s going to look like five years from now. In a way I’d love to jump in a time machine and go ahead five years and go ‘holy crap that’s even more jacked up than it is now’ or ‘God, this is boring.’ I’m really enjoying watching it play out and how it’s working. I can’t wait to see where big publishing is a year from now because right now I think they are getting ready to get pantsed. I hope the fuckers die.” [laughter] “It’s so mean, but goddamn it man. They are paying their scribblers piddly little money while they go munch at 5:15 and spend $200 on these dinners and bullshit. It’s just ridiculous. With my money!”

Scott: “It’s just Big Corporation, brother.”

Paul: “Exactly! I think that’s why the New Media is really cool. Sigler told me, ‘you’re a punk rock writer, you gotta be a punk rock promoter.’ If you really look at what punk was in the 70s, it was all about that. Breaking the traditional stuff, not doing it, doing it however the hell you wanted to, and you’ll either live or die. It’s very Darwnistic, very dog eat dog. It’s all about: can I do something that’s going to make me stand out from the pack that other people are going to pay attention to.”

Scott: “And can I survive doing it.”

Paul: “And still survive. Hopefully with your morals, your values, and your soul intact.” [laughter]

Scott: “Or at least somewhat intact.” [laughter]

Paul: “Or somewhat!” [laughter] “My basic tenant of humanity is that I want to wake up in the morning, look myself in the mirror, and be able say ‘ok, you’re alright, you’re not a shit bag.’ I have days where I fail at that. But the bottom line is you’re not trading your values, your beliefs, and your ideals for money or for fame or for anything else. It’s basically: you know what, I wrote a really good story and people enjoyed it. And that’s enough.”

Scott: “Going back to the whole genre thing we were talking about. I started listening to your stories a little over a year ago just a little before Balticon of last year. One of the things that really attracted me to your stuff is that it is not traditional genre. If you were to categorize your genre—looking at it from this whole microcosm standpoint—how would you categories your breadth of work?”

Paul: “I would like to think that I am writing literary horror. I would like to think that. I know better. I had a professor at Colorado State who was a very accomplished writer: John Clark Pratt. He was really funny. He looked at my stories that had magical realism and basic fucked up day stories, you know, Raymond Carver-esque stories and things like that. He told me that I would never be an A+ fiction writer. He said ‘you will never write A+ fiction; but I think you are going to make an excellent A- fiction writer.’ What he meant by that was taking the literary ideas of trying to do social commentary and trying to turn that mirror on society and incorporating that into genre fiction. I don’t necessarily do it intentionally, but it’s the way it comes out of my head.”

 “When I want to work with Trey Leger in ‘Closet Treats,’ I want to work with what must it be like to have psychosis. What must it be like to have to deal with not knowing if there is really a reality? That also allows me to go after the state of medical insurance in this country and get my little digs in there and bring these things up without making a huge diatribe about it. It gets me the chance to talk about prejudice and racism. It gives me the chance to bring in all those ideas and the fears that we’ve gotten to. The fact that parents are afraid to let their kids play in playgrounds.”

Scott: “Or their backyard.”

Paul: “Yeah, even the backyard has gotten ridiculously crazy. I remember a time when it just wasn’t like that. We could go to the playground…”

Scott: “And go miles and miles away from home.”

Paul: “Yeah! No body cared. Our parents would say ‘be back by four.’ And we’d say ‘okay!’ and very few things happened. This story harkens back to that. Just like with ‘Tattoos,’ it was a matter of I wanted to try and figure out why people do these things and I wanted to discuss it. I wanted people to get thinking about that. Why are you modifying your body? What is it that you are doing? How does that work back with personal identity? Those are the things I wanted to do.”

 “I wanted to discuss how someone views their relationship with God. Whatever God. I want to spend time—because it interests me—and it allows me to basically make a point that you may think this guy is crazy but someone thinks you are crazy for the way you worship or whatever else. I want to discuss those things. I don’t just want to create some cool monsters that come out and go ‘Raraw!’ I want to talk about human beings dealing with human beings regardless of what the context is. I’m much more interested with how people relate to one another and also when they have competing ideals or competing goals, along with how well that is going to work and interface.”

“I’m really interested in that kind of stuff. That’s what literature does. That is what it started out as. It wasn’t just about writing a cool story. It also was also about working in depth on those portions or parts of humanity. That’s why we have myth. We have myth to explain these relationships. We have religion to explain and try to give us some framework to work from because otherwise there’s just chaos. And we don’t like chaos. We really don’t. As human beings we want order.”

Scott: “And explanations.”

Paul: “Right, and explanations. The unexplained scares the crap out of us because our brain goes ‘I don’t know what that is and I don’t know how to deal with it.’ Well, I love playing in that. I wake up sometimes at night and I’ll see a cat there at the edge of the bed. I don’t know if that’s a cat or a demon about to attack my foot, or whatever, you know? Then it opens its eyes and it’s got these yellow eyes staring back at me. And then it starts kneading my foot and goes back to sleep. It’s just fun to play in that area. So those are the part of literature that I want to drag into my work. But I don’t want to be pedantic. I don’t want to be one of those jackasses who are going to stand up and say ‘well I’m very accomplished and you people need to believe like I do.’ It’s not like that at all. I want to write something that people are going to talk about long after the story is over. That means it has to be entertaining and thought provoking. You do have to spend a little time working at it and that’s why I love characters more than plot. I want the character to stay in their heads long after the story is over.”

Scott: “But you also use plot very effectively by throwing these poor souls curve balls. That’s one of the things I love about your work. This obviously is fan boy talk here. It’s that mix of average everyday life broken by either the psychological or the supernatural and how these poor saps figure out a way to deal with it.”

Paul: “Or don’t figure out a way.” [laughter]

Scott: “That also raises another question. You are writing things that you like. Are there other genres or a mash-up of genres that you haven’t tried yet but would like to try?”

Paul: “I would really love to write some science fiction at some point. My biggest problem is that I’m so afraid of the science parts of it and all the research that has to go into it that it is so daunting. I think that I would get more interested in the science than the story and that would cause a problem because I hate those books. I hate them. I just hate them. That’s why I don’t want to do it because then I’d say ‘I hate that shit; but dude, you wrote that shit.’ I don’t want to be that guy.”

 “I’d like to write some more military stuff and more action stuff. But I really got to get this other stuff out of my head. Historical fiction I never thought I’d touch, let alone erotical. Let alone that. So the fact that I’m starting to lay with that stuff means I’m starting to grow a little bit and get outside my comfort zone.  That’s fun too but it’s scary as hell. But yeah, science fiction can be a wonderful genre but for my head I have to figure out a way to write it so that it fits with the other things I want to do. That’s what is great about the older sci-fi, that it does those kinds of things. Sigler’s ‘Ancestor’ is bringing up questions about genetic engineering and things like that. That is a very interesting idea to explain those things. Granted those stories have been around for a while. It’s just fun to every once and a while to poke and say this is what is really going on and this is the kind of shit that can happen because of it. The research and the science has changed, but the general question about the ethics has not.”

Scott: “And the impact of it as well.”

Paul: “Exactly, and the potential impact. That has not. I think that is extremely important to talk about as writers. Especially when you see something that is completely jacked up. It’s a lot of fun to play with that.”

“I’d also like to make a book that—God, this would get me into so much trouble—I would love to write at some point a more ‘serious’ book in the sense that people who believe in God or gods or whatever else and see the interplay and try to reflect back the more fanatical aspects of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etcetera in such a way that it may make people think about how they act. If I have a reader who for one moment has to reconsider or look back on themselves and say ‘maybe I’m wrong about that’ then I’ve succeeded, in my humble opinion. Regardless of whether they end up agreeing with me, regardless of whether or not I’m right. The bottom line is if I can get someone to think about themselves in that context then as a writer I’ve succeeded completely. It’s not just about entertainment for me. It’s also about whether I made a story that someone else is going to be thinking about later has it changed their mind about something or at least make them think.”

Scott: “Almost like expanding their consciousness.”

Paul: “Yeah. It’s a very narcissistic goal. But at the same time I think about the books that really impacted the way I think. I would love to be able to do for somebody what Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’ did for me, what John Irving’s ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ did for me in the way I look at things. I would love to have that kind of impact on someone else. The only way I can do that is by writing stories and figuring our what I really like about these characters and what do I really like about this topic. Quite often it just comes out. I don’t even think about it. It just happens. Then I look back and think ‘well, I was trying to figure this out and now I’ve done it; what do I really think about this again? It’s just interesting to vomit it out. But the bottom line is the genre exploration, the different styles of writing exploration; I want to try something new with every story. I don’t want to be a formula; I don’t want it to always be the same thing. I want to keep trying to investigate what else I can do with my brain.

Scott: “Excellent. So on the flip side of that then, if you got a very lucrative contract with one of the big six, with full royalties and a large advance, what genre would you say ‘no way, I’ll never write that even if you toss me a million bucks?’

[laughter]

Paul: “I am not doing paranormal romance! That is just not happening! If you’ve read ‘Lovers’ then you know what kind of romance that I write. You know, in fact, I don’t believe in happy ending, therefore paranormal romance is completely out the door. I think that is one thing I just can’t wrap my head around is the ‘horny housewife horror.’ I can’t remember who came up with that term, really. I understand why certain people are attracted to it. And that’s okay. It’s wonderful that someone makes them feel as though there is something missing in their life and they can grab lightning in a bottle and sit there and sigh, saying ‘God, I wish I had that.’ I understand why people do that, why Harlequin makes so goddamn much money even though they are unethical sons of bitches. I understand all that.  But that’s not something I’m really interested in. It’s kind of hard to bring in social commentary. It’s hard to investigate these other things when all it’s about is ‘Oh his pecks were so sculpted…”

Scott: “… and oily…”

Paul: “Oh, yes, and oily and he was hairless and blah, blah, blah. I just can’t do it. Just can’t do it. There is no way I could do it, so that’s not happening.”

[laughter]

Scott: “To wrap it up for today, one last question.”

Paul: “Yes sir?”

Scott: “Where do you reasonably see yourself as far as your normal day job career path and your literary career path in five or ten years. Where do you want to see yourself that you think you can actually achieve?”

Paul: “I want to see myself paying my mortgage every month with my writing and related endeavors. It’s not an expensive goal. It’s doable, very doable. That means I’ve got a lot of things I need to do between now and then.  I’ve got to get better at marketing. I’ve got to get better at public relations. I’ve got to get better at writing. I’ve got to get more consistent with putting out content because I’ve been a lazy bastard the last couple of months.”

“In five years I would think that I’ve really reached a milestone if my writing can pay my mortgage. That means that’s taken care of and anything else I do is just to pay the normal daily life bullshit. And then I can take whatever job I want. I won’t have to make a certain amount of money. And that stuff will keep growing over time. It’s long tail. I’m in it for the long haul. I don’t expect any short-term success. I’m still doing this.

“Sigler is probably one of the most successful one of any of us and he’s been doing it for, what, five years now? He started with a ton of content already available to him and he keeps rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling. Well, I’m still trying to play catch-up with the other stuff I’ve got to do. I have to build up a back log before I can do consistent releases and also have enough things on Amazon and everywhere else that when you type in my name you see nine or ten titles. And the reviews are there. Blurbs. Everything else. And people are going to take a chance on paying $0.99 or $3.99 for a book. And then maybe they’ll discover the podcast. Maybe they’ll look on my author bio and see that all my audio stories are for free and they still want to check them out. They’ll say ‘hey I would’ve paid for that, let me buy a book!’

“What I need to get better at doing is figuring out all this cross-promotion and working with more people like Sigler and just kind of playing around with more of the New Media playground and getting better at it. Then, just following the tech wherever it ends up going. I have to be there. I want to be there. Maybe I’ll catch the technological trend by the tail and be able to not just grab it but maybe guide it a little bit, at least in our niche. I think that would be really kickass to be able to do that.

 “Next five year, that’s where I’m looking. I’m always keeping a track on the what we’re doing in epublishing, what the publishers are doing, what the distributers are doing, what the writers are doing, and trying to pay attention. It’s not just about my own stories. It’s about what the industry. Getting in tune with the industry, doing the research, and figuring out what’s working and what’s not working from that standpoint and what I can learn from that. Like I said, I’m not interested in writing trends. I am interested however in the business trends that are going on because this is a business. I can’t say first and foremost, because it’s not. But the business side is there. I’m spending my time and creative brainpower coming up with this stuff. It would be kind of nice to get some cash for it. You try to figure it out and the only way you can is by paying attention and getting educated.”

“Maybe in five years, I’ll be standing up in a publishing industry conference with the big and small guys, you know, decked out in punk rock clothes, with some crazy haircut, going, ‘you guys are fucking dinosaurs who deserve to be extinct!’ That’ll be the end of the keynote right there. I’ll just turn around and walk out. That’s where I’d like to be in five years.

[laughter]