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Kobo Writing Life Director Mark Lefebvre interviews Johnny B. Truant author of the Fat Vampire series, and co-author of The Beam and Unicorn Western.  The two discuss:

  • aboutjohnnyHow Johnny is continuing and concluding the Fat Vampire saga, which began as a joke during a discussion on the Self-Publishing Podcast, but became a series featuring a loveable, sympathetic and genuine hero (Reginald) rather than just a simple series of fat jokes.
  • Johnny’s evolution as a writer – specifically, how Johnny’s first novel, The Bialy Pimps, described as “Clerks” in a bagel shop, took him twelve years to publish it; compared to the incredible weekly word count he is currently producing (ie, 270,000 words for the Fat Vampire series in a single year)
  •  Giving oneself permission to simply write fast
  •  Johnny’s first collaborative novel project (along with Sean Platt) entitled Unicorn Western, and the hilarious origin story of how the series stemmed from a research argument on the Self-Publishing Podcast that led Dave to crack a joke about unicorns appearing in a western.
  • The Beam, an intellectual science-fiction series that Johnny is co-writing with Sean Platt
  • How outlining, or creating “beats” for a story helped Johnny to write fast
  • Johnny’s continuing experiments with his writing, including the layout and placement of the tools, such as keyboard, monitor, etc
  • Eminem as Johnny’s “go-to” musical artist to listen to while he is writing
  •  Johnny’s evolving philosophy on pricing strategies and funnels for writers, including making the first book in various series free
  • The call to action including choice of links to the other books and bundles in a book published as part of a series.
  • How the product image for The Beam books one through six is a three dimensional image conveys something one might normally only see when holding or looking at a physical boo
  • How there is no instant fix or easy solution, but that being successful requires thinking long term, being patient and involves a lot of hard work
  • The satisfaction of helping other writers that Johnny receives from producing the Self-Publishing Podcast

For this episode’s side-bar note, Mark speaks about social media strategies, including how it’s not about “broadcasting” a message (such as “please buy my book”) but, rather, engaging with and participating and adding to a community (with a reference to Episode 004 with Mitch Joel)

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