Perhaps best known for his Jack Keller novels, THE DEVIL’S RIGHT HAND and GOOD DAY IN HELL, North Carolina-based thriller novelist J.D. Rhoades has now struck out on his own with the much talked about title, GALLOWS POLE.
In this Q&A, mystery/thriller novelist, J.D. Rhoades discusses GALLOWS POLE, his work habits as a writer and how he arrived at the decision to join the thousands of novelists who have left traditional publishing to strike out on their own as indie novelists/publishers.
THE FIRST TIME I READ THE SYNOPSIS FOR YOUR NEW RELEASE, GALLOWS POLE, I LITERALLY GOT CHILLS! I JUST STARTED GALLOWS POLE (THE FIRST NOVEL I’M ACTUALLY READING AS AN EBOOK) AND IT HOOKED ME FROM THE VERY FIRST PAGE.
Well, thank you!
PLEASE TELL READERS A LITTLE ABOUT IT.
GALLOWS POLE is about Melissa Saxon, an FBI agent investigating a particularly grisly set of murders in which fathers are somehow forced to hang their own families, then themselves.
She’s contacted by Bishop, a mysterious ex-soldier who tells her that he thinks the killer is part of his former unit, a secret anti-terrorist team called Iron Horse. Bishop’s been in prison for years as penance for some of the things he did as the commander of Iron Horse–a prison he built with his own hands and locked himself in.
Now, with one of his own running loose and killing people, he and the few surviving members of Iron Horse have to ally themselves with Saxon and her team to try and stop the killer who calls himself The Hangman.
But there are shadowy forces behind the scenes who have other ideas.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE GALLOWS POLE, FROM THE FIRST DRAFT TO THE FINAL?
About nine months, but I’ve been tweaking it for about another three.
HOW DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR THE CONCEPT?
There’s a question we Americans have been asking ourselves a lot in the past ten years: Someone you care for, or someone you’re responsible for, is about to suffer a horrible death. You have in your power the one person with information who could prevent that.
What could you do? How far would you go to get the information? And here’s where the story comes from: what would be the long term consequences of your actions?
WHEN DID YOU BEGIN WRITING?
I did some writing for the school paper in high school. When I went to college, I took several creative writing courses, the only effect of which was to convince me that I had nothing to say and that the type of genre fiction I loved wasn’t worth writing, because it wasn’t “real” literature. So I didn’t write for pleasure for about twelve more years.
Then, in about 1996, after a couple of letters to the editor got published in the local paper, they asked me to write a weekly column (which I still write).
After a while, my editor at the time asked “why don’t you write a novel?” I thought to myself “how hard can it be?”
Little did I know.
ONCE YOU LANDED AN AGENT, HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO ACQUIRE YOUR FIRST BOOK DEAL?
About a month. Finding the agent was the hard part. That took a couple of years.
DESCRIBE YOUR WRITING ENVIRONMENT.
I describe it as “nomadic.” I write on my laptop, because the desktop computer’s in a noisy part of the house. I have to find places that are quiet and where the dog can’t find me, because to him, J.D. sitting down is a J.D. who should be paying more attention to the dog.
I swear, it’s like having a toddler in the house again. So I end up in places like the deck, the bedroom, my son’s old room, etc.
WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO GO INDIE?
I clearly remember the moment when I decided to go the e-publishing route.
My agent had been shopping the novel that ended up being called LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY to various traditional publishers. All of them were giving me the familiar “wow, I really like this, it’s fast-paced and well-written, but we don’t see a market for it” type rejections.
The one that really floored me was “we just don’t think people will buy a mystery set in a small town.” What particularly ticked me off about that one was that very week, John Hart’s THE LAST CHILD, a mystery set in a small town, was on the New York Times bestseller list, and had been for a while.
I began to think, “these people have no idea what the hell they’re doing.” I looked around and saw people like my friends Joe Konrath and Lee Goldberg making a living at indie publishing, and decided to give it a serious go.
I’d put a previous novel, STORM SURGE, up a while before, but with a crappy cover I made myself. Once I got serious about covers and marketing, it began selling briskly, and then, so did LAYWERS, GUNS AND MONEY. After a while, I put my out-of-print backlist up, and they started selling again as well.
WHAT KIND OF EXPERIENCE HAVE YOU HAD THUS FAR WITH INDIE PUBLISHING?
I’ve made some mistakes, and hopefully learned from them. I’m having fun, making a little money. Not “quit the day job” money yet, but it’s growing. We live in hope.
NOW THAT YOU’RE INDIE PUBLISHED, DO YOU FIND YOURSELF DOING MORE OF YOUR OWN MARKETING?
Oh, yeah, all the marketing falls on you. But, you know, that happened a lot with my traditional publisher, too.
IN WHAT WAYS WAS TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING MORE FAVORABLE?
It’s nice to have an editor to work with, and when they do stir themselves to put some marketing behind you, it’s effective.
IN WHAT WAYS HAS INDIE PUBLISHING BEEN MORE FAVORABLE?
I can write what I want, what interests me, instead of trying to figure out what’s “marketable,” which no one knows anyway. And I get to keep more of the money I make. Also, indie e-book publishing is a lot more flexible in terms of length.
There’s little or no market for novellas or short novels, for example, but some writers are making good money selling shorter pieces for .99 to 2.99. You could never do that in print.
There are some projects I really liked but abandoned because I could see them only being about 40-60,00 words, which no print publisher would buy. But as e-books, they’ll be perfect.
WHAT’S A TYPICAL DAY LIKE?
I still have a day job as a trial lawyer, so that takes up a big part of the day.
I can occasionally sneak in some writing time around the end of the workday, but most of it’s done after dinner or on weekends. I grab the laptop, find a place to curl up, and go to work.
DO YOU HAVE A DAILY PAGE GOAL? DAILY WORD GOAL?
I shoot for about a thousand words a day. Sometimes I really get in the groove go higher, sometimes it’s a struggle and I only get about 700 or so.
DO YOU OUTLINE?
I’ve tried. I really have. But my characters end up laughing at the outline and doing whatever the hell they want.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU’RE AN EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGER?
Oh dear lord, no.
IS THERE ANY PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS THAT FRUSTRATES YOU?
The downside of not outlining is that sometimes you really don’t know what happens next. You just sit and stare at the page, while the characters stand around, not knowing what to do, but knowing what they DON’T want to do and refusing to be forced.
WHAT PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?
Those moments of pure flow, when a character suddenly comes alive and the story starts moving so fast, it’s almost like you’re taking dictation from your unconscious. Those are great.
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR FUN OUTSIDE OF WRITING?
Play guitar, read, watch movies.
COFFEE OR TEA?
Coffee. Lots of it.
IS THERE ANY ADVICE YOU’D LIKE TO LEAVE TO ASPIRING NOVELISTS?
RUN! RUN AWAY! AS FAST AS YOU CAN! If you ignore that very sound advice, then you’re a real writer. God help you.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE QUOTE?
“I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me.”
–Jubal Harshaw, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
I’ve returned to my first love, science fiction.
My WIP (work-in-progress) is a vampire space opera revenge tale. It’s KILL BILL meets FIREFLY, with vampires, werewolves and zombies.
The vampires do not sparkle.
WHERE CAN READERS GO TO CONNECT WITH YOU?
My author website, soon to be updated, is www.jdrhoades.com.
My blog, where I wax snarky about books, pop culture and politics (including my weekly newspaper column) is at www.jdrhoades.blogspot.com. I’m on Facebook as J.D. Rhoades, and Twitter as @JD_Rhoades.
THANKS SO MUCH, J.D.!
Thank you, Jennifer.
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Q&A by Jennifer Minar-Jaynes. Minar-Jaynes is the author of NEVER SMILE AT STRANGERS.
You can also find her at www.ProjectJennifer.com.
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