Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 295 - Body Brokers, Vital Organs, and Selling Direct with Dharma Kelleher

Mar 16, 2023

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Mark chats with Dharma Kelleher who writes action-driven thrillers that explore the complexities of social and criminal justice in a world that favors the privileged. She is one of the only openly transgender authors in the crime fiction genre. They talk about that and a lot more.

Prior to the interview, Mark reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, provides a personal update and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Dharma talk about

Dharma's "long, torrid" life-long affair with writing, and beginning to write on a manual typewriter in their teenage years
What happened in the intervening years, including getting a degree in journalism
Coming out as transgender, initially to self in college, and then later on. And the challenges of doing that in the deep south of the US
Celebrating 25 years of marriage in 2023
Falling back in love with writing in 2007 thanks to NaNoWriMo
Spending eight years focusing mostly on the craft of writing
Pitching to 90 agents and then landing a deal with a New York publisher
Coming to the realization that the trad pub model wasn't going to work (due to the publisher requiring print book rights even though they weren't planning on publishing beyond eBook)
Getting tired of hearing the "we already had a transgender author book this year" from publishers
Red Market's release in February 2023 and how Dharma is selling it directly before doing a wide publishing release
How you get it early and get more when you buy it direct from the author
Switching from a WooCommerce to a Shopify website for direct sales
Doing the best they can to deliver their books to any customer wherever they are on the planet
Being the first person in Arizona to donate a kidney to a stranger and how that was part of the inspiration for Red Market
The Jinx Ballou Crime Thriller series and how crime thrillers, mysteries, etc are often about "justice"
Some of the things writers can get wrong when they include transgender characters in their fiction
Disclosure (Netflix) - that takes a deep dive into those tropes
The importance of giving transgender characters agency in fiction
How the tropes can cause real harm, not just hurt feelings
Dharma's love of numbers and love of writing being among their biggest passions
And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on two of the things that came up in their discussion.

Links of Interest:

Dharma Kelleher writes action-driven thrillers that explore the complexities of social and criminal justice in a world that favors the privileged. She is one of the only openly transgender authors in the crime fiction genre. Dharma lives in Arizona with her wife and a black cat named Mouse.   Learn more about Dharma and her work at https://dharmakelleher.com.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0