Glenn Gamble is the author of five books: A Thousand Chances, Bon Appetit, Escape, On the Run, and James. When he’s not writing books Glenn can be found 1+ ing on Google +, slamming Facebook with updates, and dropping twitter bombs from the sky. When he’s not online, Glenn can usually be found in a housing project apartment building somewhere in America betting on rat and roach races.
#1 – Do you have a routine when writing, if so, what is it?
I write a scratch outline first, then I use that outline as the foundation of my story.
#2 –What possessed you to start writing?
A blog reader of mine from MySpace told me that I should write fiction because she enjoyed the style of writing that I employed on my blog posts. I laughed at her because writing a novel was the last thing I thought I would do in life.
#3 – What is your favorite quote?
Shit happens
#4– How long did it take you to write your first novel?
A month off and on. I remember my approach to writing being so unorganized and although A Thousand Chances turned out to be a great book, if I could do it all over again, I'd write out a scratch outline and base my writing around the outline. Had I done that, I think I could have wrote A Thousand Chances in two weeks.
#5 – What books have influenced your life the most?
#6 – Do you have any writing quirks? (like having to walk around your desk 3 times before sitting down)
None that I'll admit to.
#7 – If you could spend an afternoon with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Charlie Sheen, that way I'd know what it would be like to have tiger blood.
#8– What do you like most about your book?
I like the pace of the books in the Jim Money series. They're very fast paced with a lot of action.
#9 – If you didn’t write, what would you want to be doing with your life?
I'd find a way to write. Everything me revolves around writing. Without the ability to write, I'd be voiceless.
#10 – If Dante’s Inferno were real, what level of hell would you be stuck in if you were sent there and why?
Who is Dante? He sounds like a guy who owe me money.
#11 – If Heaven is a real place, and you were sent there with the opportunity to ask God one question, what would it be?
If I were to ring Donna Summers's bell, would I get my wings faster?
#12 – If Heaven is a real place, and you were sent there with the opportunity to tell God one thing, what would it be?
Give me Solomon's wisdom and James Patterson's book sales.
#13 – What would be the one piece of advice you would give to aspiring authors?
Respect the artform of writing. Your number one focus, especially as an aspiring writer is to write the best books that you can. Write good and write often. Also read as much fiction as your time permits. Money is meaningless because most likely you'll make very little starting off. With that said, keep in perspective what inspired you to write books --your favorite authors who delivered the best books they could. Don't upload unedited, badly formatted ebooks just because you can. Make sure that you hire an editor to look over your book so that you can make necessary changes that you'll never be able to catch. If you have a small budget, seek out indie authors on twitter and Google+ and ask them who they recommend for the best price. Personally, I don't know what I'd do without my editor. My grammar is above average, and the same can be said for my punctuation; yet my editor still marks up my ebooks with red ink highlighting grammatical errors, punctuation errors, and suggest fixes for my dialouge --its never pretty and the experience is humbling each time.
Don't focus too much time making your first book a best-seller. In fact, as soon as you finish your first novel turn it in to your editor, get the book cover designed if you hadn't before you finished your book, take a few days off from writing, and start writing the next book whether it be a novella or a novel. Its more important to build your catalog than to promote your way to selling 100,000 copies of your .99 ebook--that's only $35,000 before taxes--and if they liked it they can't buy your other books because they don't exist. I know of some authors who spent a year working towards making their book sell 50,000 downloads on Kindle and when they released their next book, they found themselves starting over again because they couldn't carry the momentum from the first book to the next book.
#14 – If there was a major motion picture made of your life, who would play you?
Andrew Dice Clay
#15 – Is there a question that people never ask you that you’d like to answer? If so, what is it?
Why should readers buy books from indie authors?
Because we have proven with the likes of Amanda Hocking, JA Konrath, and John Locke that many times the traditional publishers can be and have been wrong about which stories can be sold to the public. Traditional publishers have rejected novels from Amanda Hocking and JA Konrath that have become Kindle best-sellers. There are many other authors who have produced excellent books without needing a traditional publisher to “vet” them, so our books are just as good as the ones being published by Simon and Shuster, St. Martin’s Press, etc. No one needs the big publishing houses to determine which books are released to the public. For the first time in history, people get to decide which books are good and which aren’t.
Another reason is because your purchasing dollars are going directly to the author whenever you buy a Kindle book. Good sales leads to indie authors like myself being able to sustain a living which enables us to continue writing more good books.
Speaking of good books, you can download the first five chapters of Bon Appetit free. Here's the link http://www.mediafire.com/?ms52d8eaer0ez7z
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Glenn Gamble
author of A THOUSAND CHANCES
http://amzn.com/B0050D1WB8
Bon Appétit (available on Kindle)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YWNW0K
Read My Blog: http://www.GlennGamble.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/GlennGamble
Join my Facebook Group: http://on.fb.me/kOB4pl
