Film Courage: Can you talk about the opportunities
that are available now that weren't available to authors previously?
Andrew Warren, Author: I think right now for writers and other kinds of artists like almost
any sort of creative person I think there's more opportunity now than there's ever been
if you really think about it now I think a lot of people are sort of used to kind of a
traditional way where they're putting out their stuff and and trying to sell it and that is always
going to be difficult but in terms of getting your material into people's hands as a writer
the biggest company on earth Amazon has enabled you to publish your books with them and and you
have a potential audience of millions of people Wattpad lets you publish little short stories and
things and little snippets of things and some of those have been optioned and turned into movies
Youtube Tiktok all those you can put out short films you can put out little sketches there's I
think there's constantly stories in the news about people who have made little shorts on youtube that
end up getting development deals and things so the tools are there you just have to put yourself out
there I think that's the hardest part is like just deciding I’m going to put myself out there
honestly like I watch these Youtubers and I am blown away like by how much work they must put in
these the successful ones produce content like on a daily basis a weekly basis and there's
maybe there's implications that are negative to that but in terms of the hard work that they're
doing I think it's pretty impressive like and so I think if you're if you really want to get your
stuff out there like there are so many avenues to do it now like more than ever in history
oh and sorry also I think I should add too that on the business side of things not only can you get
your stuff out there but platforms like Facebook you can run marketing and campaigns and advertise
and actually build audiences the idea 20 years ago the idea that you could like build an audience
of like 100 000 people that like similar authors to you and target advertisements to to a product
you have to those people that would be unheard of and now anyone can do that you don't have
to be a business or a company like so again like there's so many tools that are out there
to to create your content put your content out there and build an audience for it what's the most
stressful part of being a professional that you had no clue until you started I think we touched
on this a little bit earlier but I think the the imposter syndrome like that that feeling that
it's not as good as before it's not good enough I think that is a I think I just thought like
okay well if I can get through my first book then everything else will be easier and and actually I
heard a lot of authors say that too like oh the first book's the hardest and then and in many
ways that's true like in the terms of like the hours you put into it and learning the craft and
just what it takes to produce a book when you've never done it before it is very difficult but I
think what I found surprisingly hard like I said was kind of coping with that imposter syndrome
afterwards like I don't maybe i'm not as good as I think I am or maybe all these people who like it
that they're wrong or they're not seeing all the problems with it or how or maybe like maybe I just
can't do it again like like that is definitely there and I think it's ultimately I think it's
just your brain like psyching yourself out but I it was a lot more prevalent than I thought it
would be so when you were writing the first novel or the novella maybe there was a little more sense
of wow this is going great before you knew the response and then once you get a positive response
it sounds like it's been mostly positive then you start doubting yourself it's weird right
you would think I think for the first book it's more like hey can you get this done it's like
I've never written a book before so automatically if I can finish a novel that's a victory and and I
finished it so that's a huge victory for me like I was super stoked when I finished it I didn't
care if it was good or not I was just like wow I finished a book and but like you said the response
was largely positive but and I guess I thought I never would have or I never would have thought
that you would feel like worried when you're getting a largely positive response but I did
find that when I went on to the second book i'm like oh man like what if I let these people down
like what have all the people who love the first one and then now they don't like this one and I
let them down like I felt that really strongly and then again on the third one and the fourth one and
every book I've ever written like there's that kind of doubt in the back of your head
I think I think it's just inherent if you care about what you're doing I think it's inherent in
the creative process and you just have to learn to kind of not listen to that voice I think it's
always going to be there you just have to silence it until you get to the editing and then that's
where I think that can actually be useful where you can say is this as good as it can be maybe
if I tighten this dialogue maybe I need to add a scene that explains this more that's where I think
the doubt can help but when you're just writing I think you need to kind of ignore that and just
soldier on and there's so many books on getting to a certain point but there's not really a lot
of books or there's not a lot of like self-help books for the successful author right like it's
like boo hoo right but it's it's true I didn't but but what was funny was all the writers that said
oh the first book is the hardest later on then they're like oh I feel that way too like I think
I think a lot of people either maybe it's a kindness they don't want to tell you like
like they just want you to think like oh it'll be easier once you finish this book they don't
want to let like oh no it's just going to get harder and harder each time well and
i'm a broken record with this one but i'll say it again Julia Cameron has us that talk about
sort of blocked writers or or it's much easier to have people like you and gain sympathy when
you're doubting yourself or but people are fearful of someone who's confident and doing well because
then they have to look at themselves and say why am I not there right and you push people away so
it's an interesting thing where you don't think you have to worry about that but then
it's much more intimidating to be someone who's confident and is doing well and people like your
work than someone who's well and they're insecure and then everybody wants to gravitate to help you
it's a different set of of challenges there but I think it kind of goes back to like
we're saying like it's not like you're going to do something and all of a sudden your whole
life is easy straight it's like certain things might be easier but other things might be harder
how did your first book hit number one on amazon so the the way the the sales kind of went for me
was the I released devil's due first and I didn't even have I didn't really care how it did and it
was it was I was I was giving it away for free anyway I did put it up on amazon as well but my
real point of that book was to start building an audience for the next one and the next so then
when I launched Tokyo Black which was the first novel it did well but not not like I can live
off of this well but I was happy because it was my first book and it did well it certainly made
real money that was useful and more importantly people really liked it my the second novel read
phoenix that was the one that really took off like where and I couldn't tell you why I people have
asked me I think part of it was that kind of slow process of building the audience with each book
and I did like I said I was running ads and i'd started started to learn about marketing and I
was using Facebook and other promotion sites for books and things and I was I was another I wasn't
I was working at the time and another advantage of working while you're writing is you do have more
capital to invest into what you're doing and I was able to invest a fair amount into advertising
but that book Red Phoenix for whatever reason just skyrocketed I remember one day
I was post-supervising on a tv show and a movie simultaneously I was freelance sometimes I would
work multiple jobs and I left my house and then and I looked at my sales numbers like oh they're
looking pretty good today and I kind of figured that would sort of peak or go a little bit higher
and then I got to work and an hour later I looked again and it was like way higher I left and I
was like whoa and then over the course of that week I was making more money off the book than
both of those post suping jobs combined I was like oh wow and that was when I was like okay I could
really do this so that was sort of the trajectory it took what was that a fantastic feeling or was
that scary in the sense that oh is this going to last it was I guess because I didn't expect it
to last so I even I because I hadn't experienced that yet so to me I was like okay well this must
be a crazy day but then the next day it was just as high and next day was just as high
but I will say that every author who goes through those spikes I think will tell you that I think
the more important thing to realize is eventually they they don't last it's not sustainable to do
that forever I couldn't say why it spiked the way it did but I did I do think because I had
not gone through that experience before I kind of thought oh this is the way it will always be
after like a month of it being like that I was like I guess this is the way it is
but it's not the next book did really well but not that well you will have spikes and ups and downs
and good years and bad years so again that's why I say it's really important to kind of have a plan
and to look at it long haul don't when you do have a spike like that it's great like
be happy embrace it but don't like then build your whole career plan off that because
it's just inevitable that readers come readers go different genres are hot maybe maybe china was big
in the news when I launched that book or something I don't know but for whatever reason that one
probably to this day I think did the best out of all of them Red Phoenix Red Phoenix interesting
and I don't think a lot of people are like oh well do you think that's your best book and although it
is actually my personal favorite I don't think that's why because most people buying it they
haven't read it yet so they're just going off of the reviews and all the books have good reviews so
I think it's I think that i'm very happy for the success it had it was
it really helped my life out a lot obviously but I think it's more important to sort of build
a consistent career it's something that you can sustain did it have more reviews no
the books tend to have the way the reviews tend to go is obviously the longer books been out the
more view it reviews it has so I think Tokyo Black has the most reviews of all of them read
followed by Red Phoenix followed by Fire and Forget which is book number three I The Devil's
Due which is the novella doesn't have as many but I think that's because because a lot of it
gets given away for free so those people can't review it on Amazon because they didn't buy it.