Author interview – Gordon Bonnet

Gordon Bonnet is a writer, musician, science teacher, scuba diver and wine enthusiast who lives in upstate New York. Writing falls somewhere between a passion and a compulsion for him. Besides writing daily on one blog and at least twice a week on another, he has written and e-published eleven novels and a collection of short stories.

His twelfth novel, SIGNAL TO NOISE , is soon to be released.

Gordon’s writing is often concerned with the paranormal, but the central theme usually has to do with how we see the world. We all are viewing the events around us through the lenses of our experience; and this not only shapes what we see, it shapes what we can see. This inability to be certain about the world around us surfaces again and again as a subtext in his fiction.

Most of Gordon’s stories are set in the places he’s lived – upstate New York, the Pacific Northwest, and the bayou country of southern Louisiana.

You’ll find Gordon blogging here and here, on Twitter here, on Facebook here and on Amazon here. Also check him out on the Independent Authors Network here.

How digitally aware are you generally?

I’m one of those people who learns things by doing. I don’t think I’ve read an instruction manual in my life. My entry into the digital world has been gradual, but I’m still only good at a limited range of applications that I’ve had to use — Amazon, MapQuest, and a variety of science websites that I use for my day job. As far as grocery shopping online, I’ll probably continue to do it the old-fashioned way until there’s no other option.

Do you use Facebook and/or Twitter professionally and/or personally? If both, how do you distinguish between them?

Yes, and yes. I have a personal Facebook page and an author’s page, and a Twitter account. I see Twitter as more of a way to market my writing, and less about personal friendships (although I’ve made friends on Twitter), and Facebook is more about connections with friends and family (although I’ve sold books through Facebook).

There is a blurred margin between them, but I am careful about using Facebook too much for hawking my writing – I don’t want my friends thinking, “Wow, all he does here is push his books on everyone.” Twitter, though – to me, it’s more clearly designed for that purpose.

Do you have a blog? If so, why – and what do you blog about?

Yes – as a matter of fact, I have two blogs. One of them (Skeptophilia) is something I started about four years ago, and is an exploration of skeptical thinking. My day job is teaching biology in a high school, and I am constantly astounded by the weird things people believe in — and it’s not always the teenagers. Skeptophilia is dedicated to the idea of looking at oddball beliefs with a critical (although often humorous) eye. (My apologies to anyone out there who is an ardent believer in Bigfoot.)

My other blog, Tales of Whoa, is about my fiction writing, and has excerpts from my novels, pieces of flash fiction and poetry, book reviews, and musings on the writing process.

In your online networking, how much time do you spend talking to other authors/publishers and how much time with readers/fans? Do you get any tangible benefits from either?

At the moment, I spend a lot of time chatting with other authors, and relatively little chatting with my readers. One of the problems with Twitter, in my opinion, is that we find each other by picking up on hashtags, or on similar interests listed in profiles, and this means that writers usually link to other writers. If Twitter is to be an effective marketing tool, shouldn’t writers be trying to link to readers?

Thus far, my online marketing efforts have not been terribly successful, and I think it’s largely because I’m preaching to the choir – trying to sell my work to other authors who are desperate to sell their work.

Do you enjoy interacting with your readers in the real world and/or online? Any significant differences between the two?

Absolutely! I have had some wonderful conversations, both real world and electronic, with people who have read my novels, and I am always fascinated by their take on what I’ve written. My favourite part is when they pick up on something about a character, or the plot, that I didn’t – just as I mentioned earlier, we all see the world through our own lenses, and that applies just as much to what we read as to what really happens around us. I love it when a reader sees something in my character that I hadn’t thought of.

Do you respond to reviews, good and/or bad?

I thank people for good reviews, and ignore bad ones. Bad reviews are inevitable, but I think it’s bad form to argue with someone over a review – just read it, cry if you need to, have a nice glass of wine, and move on.

Have you ever actively marketed to a target demographic based on the genre of your writing or the theme of a particular book?

I think only one of my books has a specific target demographic – BEHIND THE FRAME, which is a YA paranormal adventure story.

How clearly defined is the reader in your mind when writing? Would you know where to find them online?

Whew. Okay, this is a hard one, and a question I’ve been wrestling with. I had not really given a lot of thought to target audience until recently, and my writing is in fact a little difficult to classify. It’s paranormal fiction, but I wouldn’t say it’s typical of that genre. It’s clearly not horror, I’m not into writing blood and guts. My writing is subtle, often has a psychological bent, and doesn’t give you all the answers. As a result, it asks a lot of the reader — you’re not simply told what’s happening, there’s a level on which you have to decide what you think is happening. The result is that it doesn’t fit neatly into a niche, and is a little hard to market.

One of my readers, who read one of my novels and then turned around and bought all of the others, said, “I think you are the most under-appreciated author I’ve ever seen.” So, evidently there are people out there who like this sort of writing, but how to find them? I wrote back and said, “Thanks… maybe you could tell me where to find ten thousand more people who think like you do!”

How satisfied are you with your current publisher’s marketing efforts on your behalf?

I’m doing all my own marketing, and have e-published.

What’s the Grand Marketing Plan for your next book?

I’m trying to drum up interest on Twitter and in my blog. I’ve posted excerpts and teasers, and soon will be posting the cover illustration, which should generate some interest! My plan is to release it around October 15, if all goes well.

To what extent do you buy into the concept that as an author you are a brand?

I think that’s true, but the difficulty is creating your brand in such a way that it is marketable. This is the problem with genre writing; you have to keep within the conventions of the genre and still be distinct enough to create interest in your work.

To what extent do you believe that it’s up to you to find your audience and ultimately sell your books?

That’s certainly true in the world of e-publishing. While the advent of the e-book was seen by some writers as removing the roadblocks that prevented them from getting traditional agents and publishers, it simply added a different set of roadblocks — the problem of being adrift in a sea of e-books. How do your readers find you? The marketing of your books is critical if you want to sell more than a few dozen copies to friends and family.

What would your advice be to a debut novelist hoping for… well, a publishing deal, or at any rate readers?

Don’t quit your day job… um, did I say that out loud?

Seriously, it’s a tough thing. I would advise him/her mainly to write, write, write. Keep at it. Write what you love, write from the heart, and don’t be discouraged by the difficulties of getting seen. The “big breaks” that happen often occur because of some completely unforeseen set of circumstances that have as much to do with luck as anything else.

Write from a passion for writing, not from a hope for marketing success. I write because I have to. I could no more stop writing than I could stop speaking.

If I get “found,” well, that will be wonderful, but even if some psychic told me that I would never sell a lot of books, I would still write.

So where’s it all going, this publishing business?

Hard to say. The e-book thing was a game-changer, but I think it will be a while before traditional publishing goes the way of the dodo — if it ever does.

The problem with e-books is that any sufficiently smart person with a computer can upload an e-book onto Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and this has a real effect on overall quality. Where agents and editors (for good or bad) used to act as gate guards, preventing poorly edited work from reaching the market, now we’re seeing a lot of writing being published before it’s ready.