Mark Lefebvre, Director of Kobo Writing Life, interviews author, podcaster, film-maker, photographer and audio-book producer, J. Daniel Sawyer.

In the interview, Mark and Daniel discuss:

• Dan’s publishing production schedule which include 5 books currently in the queue, 8 mysteries in a single series (The Clarke Lantham Mysteries) 6 science fiction books spread across two different series (The Antithesis Progression & Suave Rob’s Awesome Adventures) and stand-alones, a couple of short story collections and two long form writer’s guides (Making Tracks: A Writer’s Guide to Audiobooks and How to Produce Them and Throwing Lead: A Writer’s Guide to Firearms and the People Who Use Them)
• How four of the books in Sawyer’s Clarke Lantham series started off as short stories, but then “escaped” into full sized novels
• Dan’s book Ideas, Inc. that was inspired by science fiction legend Harlan Ellison’s snarky response to where he gets his ideas from
• His goal to write 3000 words each and every day
• Dan’s Nanowrimo Daily Podcast project Nanowrimo Every Month
• The three pillars of writing: Craft, Business, Law
• Examples of incorrect weapon use in stories, which Sawyer addresses in his book: Throwing Lead: A Writer’s Guide to Firearms and the People Who Use Them
• How poorly researched use of something like weapons can kick a knowing reader out of the story
• The differences in weapon terminology use, such as a clip and a magazine, an automatic and a semi-automatic
• The Weaver stance, originally created in the 1950s, and how it remains one of a number of popular shooting stances in handgun training today because it taught police officers how to shoot quickly, accurately, and without accidents
• Why the “clicking” of a gun when it is out of ammunition is an inaccurate Hollywood convention when it comes to most modern firearms
• Why Doc Brown would NOT have survived the AK-47 attack in the movie Back to the Future, even with a Kevlar vest on
• Why being shot typically won’t send someone flying backwards or even stop them while rushing forward
• Dan’s life-long passion for theatre-radio and audio-books
• How Scott Sigler inspired Dan into podcasting his fiction.
• A look at the minimum standard equipment an author would need in order to produce their own quality audio book
• How Dan has created full-cast / multi-voice audio productions
• The rough number of hours it takes to produce each hour of finished audio product and the differences between single narrator recordings and full-cast productions
• The importance of learning from one’s own blunders while finding your way through the business aspect of writing

After the interview, Mark talks about the popularity of the previous episode (Behind the Scenes at Kobo) and asks listeners if there are any other particular topics or people/departments from Kobo they’d like to see covered in future episodes. He then points out a few recently published articles from our Blog, including Picking The Best Release Day and How to Create a Great Box Set.

Links of Interest:

J. Daniel Sawyer’s Website

Twitter:  @dsawyer

J. Daniel Sawyer’s Books on Kobo

Throwing Lead: A Writer’s Guide to Firearms (and the People Who Use Them)

Making Tracks: A Writer’s Guide to Audiobooks (and How to Produce Them)

If you enjoy this podcast and would like to automatically download episodes as they go live – even before the show notes are posted to the Kobo Writing Life blog – subscribe to the RSS feed via your favourite pod-capturing platform (such as iTunes) using this link: RSS feed for Kobo Writing Life Podcast.