Film Courage: How long has writing been your full-time job?
Andrew Warren, Author: I would say writing novels specifically was probably only my full-time job
for about two years because the indie author world it's very dependent on output to the
point where when I say I write 2,000 words a day that actually would probably be considered fairly
slow for most independent authors there are people out there that write five thousand words a day 10
000 words a day and I just didn't want to go that I just didn't enjoy doing that when I
would work for that long or right that long I wasn't I don't know the the pain pleasure
balance just wasn't there for me so I started so I've diversified my income streams a little bit
so I do receive income from my books but I also do freelance copywriting on the side sometimes
if a cool post soup gig comes up I'll take that I recently post souped a interactive movie that
was really interesting to me on a technical level and I also have some screenplays that have been
optioned and that are being shopped around so for me it worked best to diversify what I was doing I
think I mentioned this before but when you are a full-time author and that is your only income
it is a lot of pressure and I found that although it was really cool and really exciting when things
were going well when things weren't going well it was it was again easy to get discouraged if you're
not careful and I just found that that pressure I didn't enjoy writing under those conditions I
actually enjoy writing more now because it's not the only thing I'm depending on did you think that
would be the case I didn't I was really excited to go full time with it and I was surprised when
I realized that it it wasn't the best fit for me but by the same token I don't think I would ever
I would not I don't I have a hard time imagining myself in a typical nine to five corporate job I
don't think I could go back to that most of the things I do I'm very lucky that they do still
involve some element of creativity I've also done like I said I do consulting with other authors and
I've done some creative consulting on screenplays so I still get to exercise those muscles but
it just keeps it fresh and it keeps like too much pressure from going on the writing side
and when there is that pressure do you find you're less creative or you're more just stressed out and
yeah I don't think I was less creative because the work I did during that time I still am happy with
but it just wasn't as much fun it was it was just harder on me to do it and also it's it's harder
you start to develop I'm sure you've heard this from other people but it's very easy to develop
like an imposter syndrome where and I find this even more so with novels where you're working on
it for so long and you're all alone and nobody sees it you start to wonder like well maybe I
just got lucky the first time or maybe I just got lucky the first two times like my fiancé jokes
that like when I finish every book I always say this is my worst book ever and she's like you say
that about all your books but you just start to like wonder it's just hard to keep things
in perspective I found for me so I would just be much more hyper critical on myself in in a
non-constructive way when when all I was doing was writing the books and that was it I would
be super super critical and hard on myself that's interesting so it sounds like you said there was
a confidence issue when you first got here and then you'd receive so many no's or you just got
to a point where it didn't bother you as much and then it sounds like there's this other point where
when you start and that's that's very interesting to me there is but I definitely think that now
having gone through all that I mentally I know like just psyching yourself out that's not true
of course you've written eight books like you're you have all of them are rated very highly so I
can talk myself off the ledge but I definitely believe that once you do it she that's what I
was saying like with the whole lottery thinking idea that oh when I do this one thing like I've
got it made it's not really at least that's not the way it felt for me because even that
one even this after the second book which was enormously successful and really allowed me to
do whatever I wanted for a couple years after that but I still was worried and I would write I don't
know if this is any good like it's I think it's just it's just in the back this voice in the back
of your head you just need to learn to ignore it do the work and then assess if it's good or bad
because until you're finished it's not good or bad it's nothing until it's done and even then
you can go back and edit it and prove it and work it nothing comes out like perfect it's it's you
just have to do the work and trust in the work and then go back and try to make it the best it can be
so it's not just if I get this many downloads or this many purchases I'm home free then there's
this new pressure not for me I can only speak for myself and some people may be less critical of
themselves some people I think have different goals out of publishing I do think there are
authors out there that probably just look at it as a business they're authors who put out like
a book a week or hire ghost writers and I'm not criticizing their practices like it's it's almost
like I said when you're an author you're also a publisher when you're an independent author you're
a publisher and I think some people gravitate more to that publishing side where it's a business
and a product and they have an assembly line that they and they may or may not care very much about
the individual products that come out I don't know but for me I'm very invested in the books
like I said I want people to feel like they're having this experience like they're traveling
to this location and I've drawn on a lot of my own travels and I always feel this pressure to
capture the place in a fair and believable light and so for me I just found that there was a lot
a lot of imposter syndrome like after even after the first two books which were really successful
I would always be like this isn't good enough or I don't know if I can do it again sure I
did it two times three times four times but can I do it again that was always hovering over me
do people encourage you or discourage you from putting the novella out for free oh
honestly I don't think I really talked to anyone about it had like I said I had done
research on what other authors had done and I had seen that that had worked for people
and so I just did it but nobody I don't I really didn't tell people a lot about what my long-term
plan was at that point I kept my cards close to my chest in fact I remember at the time
the that company that I had done some writing for when they found out I was publishing books they're
like oh they must be a horror books we'd love to see them I was like oh no actually they're spy
stuff like because the writing I'd done from for them was a horror based thing and they knew I was
a big horror fan so they were really surprised that I had written something totally different
so yeah don't didn't don't think people really chimed in on that one way or the other so once
the the actual novel came out you were able to leave your job yeah it worked out I didn't I was
a freelance post soup at that point so really I just stopped looking for gigs was what I did
and I just focused on the next next books and I did that for about two years where that was
the only income I had coming in but like I said after two years I did start to the I just felt
happier when I had other things I still do a lot of writing and I still put out books regularly but
I didn't want to have to put out four or five six books a year like I wasn't happy trying to do that
and I did try the science fiction series I wrote very quickly I put out three books in one year
and I like those books but after that experience I was like no I want to slow it down a little bit so
have you ever done a book signing or gone to read no because I do sell hard copies but mostly
it's ebook the and when you're when you're an independent author I'd say ebooks are going to
be probably 90 of your sales so Kindles and Kindle yeah had some books that were wide some books that
were exclusive to Amazon it just depends but that was most of the money also audiobooks are
starting to become bigger but still I find most of my revenue comes from ebooks so did you read
for the audiobook no no I didn't don't like my voice like I said so yeah no but also I think
to me that's a skill there are professional narrators like that's what they do sure so I
wanted to work with someone like that that would really elevate it had you ever really thought of
what the voice the actual voice of the character was I did I not in the sense of I didn't put a
lot of thought into it but I certainly hear him in my head I know what I think he sounds like so
I would listen to narrators the first audiobooks actually weren't independently produced they were
with a company license them from me so they had final say on who narrated it but they did they
sent me candidates and I chimed in like oh I like this guy I don't like this guy interesting and so
it's an American accent yeah British okay he's American wow and where did he grow up Kane yeah
it's it's a mystery it's a mystery open so we know nothing yeah he's a cipher interest very
little of his past has been revealed and in fact there's a running joke in the books that
whenever someone is about to mention his military record it says that he's a veteran but it's
never said like where he served or what branch he served and whenever someone's about to say it like
someone else always cuts them off or someone says oh that's classified and so readers will always
offer their theories like oh he must have been a Navy SEAL or he must have been a Marine Force
Recon but it's never been said like what he was so does he give away any tells with food that
he might like or a phrase I tried to it was the the intention of the character was that he'd be
somewhat of a blank slate he's very I wanted there to be a an element of mystery almost
like he's almost like a force of nature when he gets involved in something so he's he certainly
has traits he's very he's cynical he's someone who's been betrayed and he's someone who has an
intense self-loathing because he he looks back on the things he did in the CIA in the army with
regret because he's seen now that not everything was what he believed that it was so he is very
distrustful of people that elevate themselves morally above others he's very he's bitter and
cynical although gradually through the books that changes he starts to go in this redemptive arc
and he's he's he's someone who's lived all around the world so he's very open in terms of like what
he'll eat the books are set all different places and I always try to I try to present him as
someone that can fit in almost anywhere he drinks whiskey for the most part and he doesn't like very
sweet things those are those are about the only two things I can think of that are consistent
is there a part of you that wishes the books would do better on Amazon so that you wouldn't have to
work anymore well like I said the work that I do is is work I enjoy so it's still creative stuff
so I don't of course I wish the books could be number one New York Times bestsellers why not
like of course I would always want them no matter how successful they are I think I would want them
more successful and they are nowhere near that level of success for sure but no I don't think
that I would want to only write books enjoy it it's a big part of what I do but I would also
want honestly I think what I would really like would be the freedom to slow things down and
write fewer books that I could also write some screenplays and maybe some TV pitches and maybe
do do the author consulting which I really like I like helping first-time authors and showing them
the ropes and what I did and getting them started on the right path because there's a lot of scams
out there and like predatory businesses that prey on first-time authors and screenwriters
I'm sure you guys have seen that stuff so when I do consult with authors it's very inexpensive
and I'm like don't spend money on this like don't give anyone ten thousand dollars to publish your
book don't do that it's steering them away from the obvious scams so I enjoy doing all that so I
don't want to necessarily give that stuff up but sure who doesn't want more success right
and when you work with these authors they are ones that have have a finished
sometimes they do sometimes they're in the middle sometimes they haven't finished yet
sometimes they've written several books but they just haven't been able to achieve success
and they're not sure like what they should be doing differently it's all over the map.