Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing EP 047 - In The Pilots Seat with James Blatch

Nov 15, 2018

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If you are familiar with the Self Publishing Formula Podcast, you'll likely recognize James Blatch as Mark Dawson's right-hand man; his co-host, or, perhaps, his co-pilot for the podcast.

But in this episode Mark puts James in the pilots seat with a focus on Blatch's own writing, his background as a reporter, a videographer and, of course, as a pilot.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word from the podcast's sponsor, Findaway Voices . . .In his personal update, Mark reflects upon the recent death of Stan Lee and talks about the impact Lee's writing had on him, and, in particular, the influence that the character Peter Parker (Spider-Man's alter-ego) had.

In the interview, Mark and James talk about:

The type of specific videos or books that lend themselves best to YouTube videos VS Facebook videos
How videos for most authors, specifically fiction authors, is a medium that can be used to connect and engage with a community of readers
The intimacy of radio and digital audio format
A bit about James' experience at the BBC and how the skills, particularly of his final few years there lent to this new role as a co-host of the Self Publishing Formula Podcast
James' first writing experiences as a young man and his more recent NaNoWriMo experience where his current novel came to him in a single flash of inspiration
The evolution of this novel with various feedback from readers and editors
The turning point moment for James of meeting and working with editor Jennie Nash Jennie's prompting question: "Why do you need to tell this story" and all that question sparked in James
Other questions that Jennie asked or prompts given that helped with the re-imagining of the way the story was unrolled
The origin of his love for aviation
How James is an even split between the exuberant mother and his reserved and "stiff-upper-lip" father
James' recent experience in Florda flying with Nathan van Coops (from episode 38)
The advice that James would go back and give to himself when he was just starting

After the interview, Mark reflects upon the latest "catastrophy" in the indie publishing space, the recent disappearance of the buy buttons on Amazon for thousands of titles.

He offers a reflection on the likely reason for this odd phenomenon and then suggests that much time is wasted worrying over the matter instead of working on the next book. He also considers, if it truly is the negative thing authors think it might be, it's yet another reason why authors shouldn't be putting all their eggs in a single basket.

Links of Interest:

James Blatch is co-host of the Self Publishing Formula podcast. He is a former BBC Television News reporter and is currently writing his first novel, a military thriller set in 1960s Britain.

The 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