I’ve mentioned several times in the Killzone corner of cyberspace that one of the great bits of good fortune I’ve encountered since moving to West Virginia was to nail a regular drive-time co host slot on WRNR/TV10 in Martinsburg. While the primary focus of Eastern Panhandle Talk Radio is on local politics–which are far more abundant than I would have imagined–we frequently feature authors, including our own Debbie Burke and Reavis Wortham.
The format of the interviews is informal and conversational–24 minutes uninterrupted by commercials. With that much radio wave real estate to fill, the interview has to be about more than just the book du jour. Authors of nonfiction have the benefit of being subject matter experts on the topic about which the book is written. It’s trickier with novelists, however, where much of the substance of their story is purely a product of the author’s imagination. It’s incumbent upon the writer to offer up a compelling hook. When Debbie was on to pitch Deep Fake Double Down, the interview was as much about deep fake technology as it was about the book itself. If I were interviewed about the latest Jonathan Grave books, I’d talk about weapons and the Mexican drug cartels.
Remember, the point of a long form interview is to make people interested in you. Of course, you want to hype the book, but the more important takeaway is that you as a person are interesting.
The stark reality of mainstream radio and television is that a relatively low percentage of the audience will be big readers of anything. Of that population of readers, fewer still will be readers of your genre, and a solid percentage will be exclusively fans of nonfiction. Being interesting is the most reliable tool in your kit.
Which brings us to the most critical interview error to avoid.
Those of us who travel to lots of conferences are used to giving presentations that are geared toward other writers. We all have schtick on outlining, character development, techniques to increase suspense and countless other writerly topics about which mainstream broadcast audiences care not one whit.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a local self-proclaimed literary author on the show who literally could not articulate what any of the 23 short stories in his collection were about. He praised his own prose as lyrical and he spoke about the beauty of his language. There was a long riff on synonyms. We know from the interview that the stories in the collection are about “the common struggles we face.” Less clear are what those common struggles might be. Despite multiple attempts to get him to speak about the specifics about the plot or the characters, the author couldn’t turn off his inner MFA-speak to communicate with a mainstream audience. We ended up cutting the interview off after 18 minutes and running the top of the hour commercial set a few minutes early.
My intent with the story above is not to make fun of the author, nor to criticize his book. In fact, I’ll stipulate for the sake of argument that the book is brilliant. It’s a shame that he’d given so little consideration to how to pitch it to strangers.
And here we are at the end of another year. The older I get, it seems the faster the calendar pages turn. As we prepare for our annual hiatus, I think it’s important to impart upon our TKZ family how special a thing we have going here, and how grateful I am to be a part of it. Here’s wishing all of us a glorious Holiday Season and healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!
You bring up something I seldom think about as a writer–how would I come across verbally in any sort of interview? I mean my world revolves around the written word. It’s what I prefer. And, as an introvert, pondering things on paper is what I do. But it’s a whole different world if you’re doing any kind of interview on radio or other A/V medium. I’ve added a note to think about that eventuality and be prepared.
I wonder if, in the example above, the author got hung up on figuring out how much they wanted to reveal about their plot and perhaps maybe they hadn’t thought about that beforehand?
And I 1000% agree. The older I get, the faster time flies. Unbelievable! Have a joyous holiday season.
This author had reached out to us for the interview but clearly had not thought it through all the way. My guess is that he was not prepared for the longer format.
Good lesson, John. We need to be able to pitch our books to strangers. Have a peaceful holiday season.
Wow, John, thanks for the shout-out! The interview with you, Rob Mario, and Admiral Stubblefield was a privilege and an honor. Listening to it again, seven months later, reinforces that I still have more to learn!
Great point about the need to address the audience’s interest rather than the writer’s interest. I love to meet with book clubs b/c they teach me what readers’ reactions are to the story. They generally don’t care about under-the-hood mechanics like passive voice and POV that writers focus on. They just want to get in the car and be taken for a great ride.
Forgive me for a bit of shameless self-promotion: Deep Fake Double Down is a finalist for the BookLIfe Prize sponsored by Publisher’s Weekly. On pins and needles for the announcement of the winner on Dec. 15.
Thanks again, John, for a wonderful opportunity. Warm wishes for the holiday season to you and your family!
Great post, John. Thanks for the advice on being interviewed.
I listened the interview you did with Debbie seven months ago. It was excellent. I enjoyed the setting and the way you covered the topic. The informal setting and having more than one person doing the interview made it sound like a conversation among friends.
Wishing you and your family a wonderful Holiday Season, and successful New Year!
First, thank you all for providing me an enjoyable read each morning. I have learned quite a bit about writing and life hear. Happy new year.
Sometimes, you can indeed, like this author, get wrapped up in the “technospeak” of the craft, as opposed to, you know, convincing someone to buy the book.
Thank you all again, and now back into my techno world.
Interesting. Just yesterday I was discussing literary short stories with Mrs. B. I said the endings are often ambiguous, leaving it to the reader to feel and fill. There’s not a “high concept” plot to talk about. And it is largely about language and style. Thus, I kind of get why this author couldn’t (or didn’t want to) get into specifics about meaning because that’s what they want the reader to discern. To explain a story would diminish the experience of it.
But knowing he’s going to be interviewed, he does need to develop some sort of public persona that is interesting. Or at least some amusing ways to answer pointed questions. Like Hemingway in Midnight in Paris:
https://youtu.be/3wM06z5lA74?si=y9kMFMIbqcKgtIoE
Great casting. Perfect out.
I can imagine the book: 400 pages of airy litter.
Funny, Jim! Love how you connect movies and writing.
John, your account of the author who couldn’t summarize what his stories were about underscores the importance of writing blurbs. Even if your publisher doesn’t require them, it’s a vital exercise.
Great post, John. It’s important to be prepared. Last year, I was one of the Guests of Honor at a virtual science fiction convention. Myself and another GoH, an old acquaintance, had the opportunity to interview each other one session. I had to prepare questions for him as well as be prepared to answer them. It ended up being a very fun hour for both of us.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!
I’ve done some of those joint interviews in the past. They’re always fun, especially when the other party is a good friend.
Thanks for this, John.
It’s a perspective I hadn’t considered. I am going to be presenting my first workshop at a writers conference next April, and I think your comments will play into my preparation. I’m scared to do it, but who was it who said, “Do something every day that scares you”?
Happy holidays to you and yours, and thank you for all you have taught me in the TKZ halls. 🙂
Much of the fun of being a writer is talking about books and writing with other writers, people who understand. “Hemingway,” here, has it right, i.e., Allen speaks the truth about the craft. I must watch Midnight in Paris again.
i’ve been interviewed by a couple of podcasters, and I found it very helpful to listen to several of their posted podcasts to get an idea of the kinds of questions they would ask. I am much more comfortable when I can prepare beforehand. Do you give your guests a list of possible topics and questions?
Happy holidays to you and your family, John.
I don’t provide questions ahead of time, and discourage guests to provide them because they tend to take spontaneity out of the conversational format. Everything flows better for all parties when questions arise spontaneously from the conversation. Another critical element of doing a good interview is to LISTEN to everyone. If people work off of lists, they tend to prepare for what they expect instead of reacting to what’s being said.
Somewhere around here I have a long list of potential questions for interviews.
Happy holidays to you and yours, John! I’ve been interviewed several times, and the conversation always veers away from the book. That’s what makes it a great experience. If it was only book-related, we’d bore listeners to death. LOL
Have fun decorating your new house!
My first career was in radio, which I left to enter federal service, and then back to radio. It was during the middle segment that I started writing. I’ve since had a lot of on-air and podcast interviews, and I’ve found that the best hosts are the ones who don’t tell me exactly what they’ll ask beforehand. They’ll give me an idea–“I’d like to talk about your new book”–but I wait for them to come up with interesting questions, like, “Your protagonist trains in the martial arts. Do you have a background in that?” (I do.) Or, “The protagonist in one of your series is a woman. How hard is it, as a man, to write a woman?” (“It’s not easy, but fortunately I’m married to one, so I ask her a lot of questions.”)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours from way up here in northwest Wisconsin!