Overview
Steve attributes the success of his series to his great character, Joshua Oates. He had the idea for the series because he had the character so well developed.
We discuss how focusing on the character helped him to create the series as a whole.
Book
https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Numbers-Joshua-Oates-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0B5HPRFZZ?crid=2ZTZ9J3F3XRM2&keywords=murder+by+the+numbers&qid=1663785280&sprefix=murder+by+the+number%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-5&linkCode=li2&tag=discoveredwordsmiths-20&linkId=d31b8b9e04fa43f3409a708dc5351a01&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_il
YouTube
https://youtu.be/DjzDgCtfNf0
Transcript
All right. So let's talk some author stuff.
Before we talk about writing your series based on your character let's a few other things you've been writing for a while. What are some things you've learned that you're doing different now than you did from at the beginning?
[00:26:41] Steve: Yeah. One thing get a comfortable chair. Because you're gonna be on that keyboard or writing on a notebook or whatever, but you're gonna be sitting down and you're gonna be writing.
And that's a task that if you have a comfortable chair, that helps a lot. What else can I tell you? The things that I did yes, be compact. Be economical. What I mean by that is. You can be writing and you have rambling sentences that people, don't we really wanna read. You really wanna get to the action.
What's taking place, the dialogue is something you learn as you go, I think and you want crisp short dialogue that goes with the story that, makes it go. You can have reflective dialogue, but I find that when two people are talking to each other two characters are talking to each other.
You wanna get to the point,
[00:27:38] Stephen: right? Yep. Okay. Now, I picture with that hat and talking about the 1920s, I picture you sitting there at an old Remington steel typewriter taking away at it, but I assume you don't do that. What, so what what do you do when you write, is there any software or services that you particularly like?
Yeah,
[00:27:58] Steve: I tried different ones. First I tried a Microsoft word, which is good. And then I went to Google docs, which I use now. There are many others out there that I'll probably experiment and try different ones. But right now the Google docs seem to work. One of the things it has is that if I misspell a word it tells me, Hey, this word does not spell like that.
Okay. all right, then. I'll correct it. And. And I can I can use that and you can actually convert Google docs to either a PDF file or a Microsoft word file. So yeah. So you can have the best of both worlds,
[00:28:41] Stephen: okay. All right. And you had also mentioned earlier about marketing and that, so what are you doing to market?
Do you have any interesting marketing you're doing.
[00:28:50] Steve: I'm doing I'm doing podcast, which I'm thankful on. Thank you. Thank you for having me by the way. And I'm also doing some book signings. I also do some what would I call it? The library has different author days, my local library.
So I do those. And I also get on as many websites as I can to try to promote my book. I do have the Amazon author page. I do have the Facebook page. I not on Instagram and I don't do Twitter. It's probably, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing for an author. But that's what I'm trying to do that.
And also there's book fairs too, that I enter to try to do it that way.
[00:29:37] Stephen: So how are you finding like the book fairs and things to go to? Are you just Google searching or do you hear about 'em from other places?
[00:29:45] Steve: Yeah. A little both. And then I have author friends that tell me about. and I read about it in the newspaper and yes, I still read a paper newspaper that comes in.
[00:29:58] Stephen: With that hat, you have to, ,
[00:29:59] Steve: You gotta do, you gotta go for it. Yeah and I get and word of mouth,