Lindsay - May 7, 2020This week, we interviewed Michaelbrent Collings, an internationally bestselling novelist, produced screenwriter, and multiple Bram Stoker Award finalist. He’s written in numerous genres, including horror, thriller, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, humor, young adult, middle grade, and western romance.
He was previously a guest on Andrea’s Self-Publish Strong podcast, where they talked screenwriting, showing instead of telling, and creating intelligent characters.
Here are some of the questions we asked him in today’s interview:
- How did you get into writing and publishing, including doing screenplays for Hollywood?
- You’ve been publishing for quite a while. What changes have you seen over the years, and how have you adapted to them?
- Are things better or worse now than when you started self-publishing?
- You’ve had a downturn and almost gave up publishing at one point. What did you do to get through that and kick up sales?
- It looks like you’ve got some books exclusive to Amazon and others that are wide. What’s your strategy when it comes to wide vs. exclusive?
- How do launches factor into your marketing strategy? Do you focus most of your advertising dollars on them?
- Do you try to keep sales up with “maintenance ads” in between releases?
- You’ve had at least seventeen BookBub features in the last two years. Any advice to our listeners for how to get them?
- You’re doing a CoVid-19 99-cent sale on all of your ebooks right now. Are you able to make advertising work at that price point and stay in the black?
- As a genre-jumper, did you ever consider pen names? Do you have any regrets about keeping everything together under your name?
- In the modern world of indie publishing, it often feels like you’ve got to be churning out books to be successful. Obviously that’s not universally the case, but high productivity is better than low productivity. Have you ever had problems with burnout? How do you prevent/get past it?
- You’ve seen at least two screenplays get produced. What are the stories behind how they came about?
- For authors who would love to see one of their stories made into a movie, are your odds any better if you learn screenwriting and create your own screenplay, or is it something you should only pursue if that’s a legitimate interest?
- It seems like screenwriting is about 98% obstacles. At one point, the pipeline seemed to be get an agent, get them to pitch to a production company, and get them to pitch it to a studio. Is that still the way of things? How do you get started?
If you want to learn more about or connect with Michaelbrent, you can find him on his website Written Insomnia. His books are available on Amazon and other stores.
Thank you for listening, and thank you to Joshua Pearson for producing the show.
