Chad Dean Writer/ESL Teacher Chad's book: "School of Marble and Mud" |
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Q. When did
you know that you wanted to be a writer?
A. I realized that
I wanted to be a writer when I was around six or so. I remember
talking with a friend about what we wanted to be and he told me
that if I wanted to be a truck driver, I had to go to college. I
didn't have any desire to go to college when I was six, so I
decided to become a writer. The first story I wrote was called
"Strange Stories About Strange Dogs". It was a
compilation of all the bad things that had happened to the few
dogs I had in my short six years of life. I wrote the stories,
drew the cover, asked my mom for the stapler and bound it. I had
created something. I've been doing that ever since.
Q. How do you
balance working a day job with pursuing a writing career?
Q. What steps
did you take to get your book published?
A. Since it took so
long to finish this one, I decided to self-publish it.
I really had changed as a person and I didn't want to keep the
manuscript around stinking up the place. I knew I would keep
messing with it and obsessing over it, so I just wanted to get it
out there, then take the steps towards traditional publishing
(which I'm doing now). I did a lot of research into many of the
self publishing companies and basically chose the one that I
thought produced the best cover and left me with all of the
rights. That was iUniverse. It was a tedious process to go
through, but worth the final product. There were various
stages in the submission process. This was probably the hardest
part of writing the book. I chose to have an editor tear the
book apart and give me feedback...that took a couple of weeks.
Then I made changes (like the title), then sent them back. Some
of the input they give you is based on marketing, and unless
selling books is your primary motivation, you have to take that
advice with a grain of salt. After the editing, there was a
proofreading stage, a revision stage, a final copy stage.
Honestly, I really don't remember how many stages there were.
It was pretty thorough, though. The perception of
self-publishing is that these are people who can't get published.
I used to think like that, and actually went into the
process wearily, but I've come to find out that's not
entirely true. There is A LOT of crap out there...don't
get me wrong, but some of it is actually pretty good.
Q. What are some of the common mistakes that novice writers make?
A. If you
define novice writer as a novice published writer, then I
can't really answer that one too well, because I consider myself a
novice in terms of being published. I guess one of the many mistakes
that I made at the end of this thing was to assume that the book
would just sell. I believe the book is worth reading...it MUST
sell. Wrong. It takes money to market the book and without
marketing, you're selling books to Aunt Geraldine and your
cousin Moe. I wish I was a better salesman.
Q. Where do you see the future of the publishing industry going?
A. Being a
teacher, I see an increasing number of kids who can't read worth a
damn and have no interest in reading worth a damn. Overweight kids
glued to their video games. Damn, I sound old. But it's true. I
think people will always read books, but there's so many ways
to get information these days, that who's to say where those books
come from? Right now, romance novels are the top selling
genre. I'm not sure what would change that. Maybe I'll write a
romance novel.
Q. Where do
you see yourself in five years?
Q. What inspires
you?
A. Too many
things to list.
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