Melissa:
Good Adventures, everybody! Welcome to episode 5 of Books Cubed. Ok. So I’m gonna look at comments.
We have a comment from last week’s show.
I read from a work in progress tentatively titled What is it tentatively titled? Oh yeah! Four Bullets and a Ghost.
It’s tentatively titled Four Bullets and a Ghost and it’s Paranormal…and there might be a little Romance.
There’s detectives and there’s all kinds of good
stuff in it. I read chapter 1, so you can go listen to that after you’re done with this one here. And, M.L. wrote:
“Amazing writing” Thank you!
“Do you find yourself unconsciously setting the scene with the same weather or season you’re actually in”?
Um, it’s a good question. For what I wrote, for what I read last week, I did set it in the city I was living in, just because I lived there and I liked the city. Takes place in Tucson and the next book, which I’m currently writing at the same time, is How to Square Your Grouper, which is a sequel to How to Sex Your Snake. The sequel takes place in Key West – where I wanna be. I lived there for two years. My favorite
city that I’ve ever lived in. Toronto’s my favorite city I’ve visited, but Key West is my favorite city to live in. I don’t know.
Maybe one day I’ll go back. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see, so, thanks for the comment and like I said, I don’t think I do it consciously. Maybe I do. It’s probably more where I’d like to be.
I’m researching a book that I’m gonna write in a little, small town in Italy, so I probably need to go visit it for that. I keep hinting to my husband that a visit to Italy’s probably in order, sometime in the next year, for that book research. So, uh, if you have any comments go ahead and leave them. I’m putting the show up a couple days early. It’s the 23rd, so this won’t go live until… whatever Thursday is. If you have a comment between now and then, I’ll just I’ll get to it next week.
So, uh, today, I am talking to TK Lawyer, who writes paranormal romance, so there you go. I think you’ll enjoy the talk and before I get to that, you may have noticed no glare..yay!
No glare! I figured out how to get rid of the glare. I was bitching about it last week. I almost had a rant last week about the glare on my glasses -didn’t really qualify – but there’s a little button on the keyboard that makes the screen brightness go down and that got rid of the glare on my glasses. Why I didn’t I think of that? Oh well. Anyway, on to TK’s interview and I’ll see you afterwards.
Here I am with Tamara – and that’s how I say it, right? Yes, got it. You got it. [laughs]
Also known as TK Lawyer and this is one of her books, Centurion – make sure I’m not covering any of the good parts. And so, you write… it’s Paranormal, but I keep wanting to call it Angel Romance …
Well…
…because if I go out to romance I found 50,000
things came up Googling Angel Romance on Amazon.
TK: Melissa:
TK: Melissa:
TK: yes.
Melissa: So I should call you Paranormal, though? Paranormal Romance?
TK: Paranormal Romance; but I write about angels and I also write about wolf shifters.
Melissa: That’s the other one that I was gonna say, yeah – to make sure we mention that at the end, there.
I thought I would try something new, as I’m talking
to you, and to my listeners and readers – that we
listen to interviews all the time and it’s always the same questions: How do you write? Where do you
write? How do you come up with your ideas?
It’s always the same things that we authors are asked over and over and over again. I was doing a little Googling
and I found a site that had a list of 50 unique questions to ask authors and you can actually use it for a lot of different professions if you’re interviewing somebody.
So what I did was, I asked Tamara to take a look at the
list and pick out five that she would like to talk about.
This way, they’re a little bit more about her.
The first one was and this is a good one -I like this question – Does a big ego help or hurt writers?
TK: Well, I think a big ego doesn’t help you at all in life, to begin with, so in the writing world there’s a lot of authors out
there, so it’s really hard to become known… to gain
a fan base, you know, and you’ve really got to work with others. I think, really just in general and in life, you got to work – you got to play – well with others. You’ve got to work well with others, you know?
Melissa:
TK: Melissa:
TK:
You do [muffled] ..a lot of new writers are under the misconception that other writers are competition and they’re really not – even if they’re in your same genre. Readers are always looking for the next book.
Right.
If they only bought one book in their lifetime then yeah,there’d be competition but other writers are not competition. At all.
Right. What I’ve learned and I love it, is that authors are readers too. I mean, you really don’t want to dismiss anyone to begin with. I mean, you really don’t but, um, and that’s
that’s why I think it’s really… it’s sad that, you know, I hear stories about authors saying bad things about other authors or dismissing them or giving them poor ratings or stuff like
that. Why? Why would you even do that?
Why? it’s not ..
it’s not good to do.. Uh oh! Are you still there? [muffled]
Yeah, ..just can’t see your face but we’re still here. Do your [muffled]
Oh,there you are! [laughs] Okay, I got the low battery mode… oh that’s not good. Okay, We’ll have to make this quick.
…stop and plug in?
Yeah, you know what? I’m going to need to; but I need to go get my charger.
Go get your charger, I’ll wait.
Can we do that? Okay. I’m so sorry.
So, for the viewer, I’m gonna cut this and we’ll come back to her. It’ll be instantaneous.
————–
Melissa: TK:
Melissa: TK:
Melissa: TK: Melissa:
Melissa: I forgot what we were talking about…Okay…uh…
TK: [feedback] about ego. You know when it comes to being a writer, like I said, you got to work well with others,
you really do and you will find in the writing community- especially the indie community- people want to help others, so you know you want to help others, as well.
You form bonds. You form relationships. You can help others. iI can help you. You know, it’s like you said, it’s not a
competition. I just… I’ve always been the type of person that I
like to help others. You know, I even do that in my day job.
So I just think that having a big ego – it’s not it’s not gonna do
anything to promote you. It’s not going to really help you at
all. ‘Cause if you have a big ego, you’re gonna do things that are gonna turn readers away and turn authors away – and
even publishers. You know, my publisher had mentioned one time that someone had submitted a book to them and
said, “ When am I going to get money? You know.
“Am I gonna get an advance?” and it was just really aggressive and the publisher is like, “No.” That’s something you
don’t want. There’s a lot of authors out there and, really, you got to be humble and kind. You get a lot more when you’re
like that.
Melissa: Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly…which brings us kind of to literary success, and that was for question number two:
What does literary success look like to you? Now, as a new author, I have only one book out. I have one prequel and one book. Now, you’ve got six…
TK: Well, to me, success really revolves around readers.
I love to gain more readers. I love to interact with people,
and when I go to book fairs and I can have people come up to me and they they read my book. They loved it… give me a hug…let’s chat about angels… whatever. I just love that. So, literary success to me is really based on getting to know people. Getting people to read my book…interact with me.. you know, interact with other readers…
I just love that. It’s like the best thing in the world when a reader comes up to you and they say they love your book. They read it and they loved it, and when they tell others about your book. I mean, that is the best thing in the world to me. So really, success to me revolves around, not so much on numbers but on really getting the word out there about Paranormal Romance – just fun.
You know and especially about angels. There’s not a lot of books out there that have the Paranormal Angel Romance genre. So then, I love angels so I love writing about them. I think it’s fun little stories and just getting to that population who loves angels. That’s just the best.
Melissa: Yeah. Yeah…and It’s a good place to be if there’s not a lot of books already out there so you could be a trailblazer, most
definitely.
Which takes us to the next question. I’m reading this book and Centurion is the lead character. How do you come up with the names of your characters?
TK: Actually, they just come to me. It’s really funny! I have a friend and she can never think of names, so I actually help her out.
When it comes to angel names, I personally like names that end with “ON”… so, like, you’ll see Centurion. Aaron…
you know, Jasper was off the wall. Jasper, I just thought would be a pretty cool name. I got a bracelet that was Jasper and I said, “Hmm …that would be pretty cool as an angel name”. So, you know most of my angel names have an “ON” at the end. I just don’t know. For some reason, I just think that’s something great The characters in some of my angel books – the female heroines you know like, Tatiana –
Tatiana was actually a name my mom was thinking about calling me instead of Tamara, so it was either Tamara or Tatiana and I thought, well, that’s a different name. I love unusual female names. I just love unusual names to begin with, so I put Tatiana in there. Kim is actually my middle name,
Melissa:
TK:
so she’s in Aaron’s book. And, I had to have a book with my name, because I never see my name in anything, pretty much, so Nightfall has Tamara as the lead character in there. So yeah, some of the names I got from my past.
Okay, let’s do this one. I’ve done this before- get out the computer. You can’t sleep. It’s, like, 11 o’clock at night. You got your bowl of ice cream. There’s nothing on TV, so you get out the computer and you Google yourself – not always a good idea. Do you? Have you done that? Have you Googled yourself?
I do it a lot, actually, because I want to make sure I have a social presence. You know, as an author, you do have to have that platform. You have to have that social presence.
You have to be, what they call, searchable.
When I started off, I wasn’t searchable. So now, I’ll Google myself. I’ll put TK Lawyer- and even if I do it without the period/ with the periods – I can still find myself. So I’ll do that to
see what’s popping up. I also do that because sometimes people will post reviews and you won’t know about it – so I’ll have businesses post reviews. You know, I might have sent a book to like the Paranormal Romance Guild or something and they’ll pop it up anytime they want. Sometimes, not let you know, so I’ll search myself just to see if I got any new reviews. Then, that way, I can share it with my fans and readers.
Oh, what a good idea! I haven’t thought about that.
See? I’m very new at this. I come from film and screenwriting and I just didn’t ever really pay much attention to anything, because once the film’s out, there’s nothing I can really do about it.
So, that’s a really good idea. As a writer, you
should be Googling yourself and finding out what other people are saying, and making note of reviews. That’s really
good – especially if you’re sending it to review sites or to bloggers.
Melissa:
TK: Right.
Melissa: They may not write to get back to you.
This lady in one of my writing groups was telling
me about her book. It’s a Christmas book for children. I want to get her on here to chat about it, because it was really cute. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember what the Hell
the character was – it was some animal and Christmas and it was really adorable and I thought Ooh, it would be great –
I’ll talk with her and then I can send a copy of the book to my nephew – who’s got two little bitty ones -which got me thinking about books from childhood, and that was one of your questions. and it was gonna be one I was going to ask you today. Do you have a favorite book from your childhood?
TK: Yes, I do and I have it right here: Melissa: You do?
TK: It’s Ferdinand.
Melissa: What’s it called?
TK: The story of Ferdinand… the Bull.
Melissa: Ohhhh… [muffled]
TK: They made it into a movie. [feedback] The sad part is the movie is not really like the book. So.. read the book! The book
is great. The book is short. It’s a simple story. It’s a beautiful story about a bull who loves a cork tree and he loves to
sit under the cork tree with his butterflies and smell flowers, all day long. He doesn’t want to be one of those in the arena, fighting. He wants to be at peace. I love the story because that’s how I am.
TK: I like to be at peace. My peace and quiet …when I come home the garage door goes down and I’m home. So this is one of
my favorite stories. it’s a real nice. It’s a beautiful book to read to kids, too and it’s not that long and it’s got
beautiful illustrations in it, too – this is my favorite book and I actually bought it because I really liked it .
Melissa: Do you have more coming out in that series soon? TK: Orion is coming out in January…
Melissa: Oh…fantastic –
TK: That’ll end the series.
Melissa: There’s links in the show notes – to all your books and if people wanna find you,
how do they find you?
TK: Well, I’m searchable. Google me.[feedback] I’ve got so many social sites. I’m on Facebook, just TK Lawyer, author,
and you’ll find me. I have a blog[feedback]…Instagram…
Google +… just wherever you are, I’m probably there, too, so you can Google me. Put TK Lawyer. You don’t have to, you know,
worry about the periods. I wanted to make it real easy for my readers to reach me. And, I am on Facebook. I’m on Facebook most of the time.
Melissa: Okay… great! I have links in the show notes of how everybody can find you and and gosh I think that’s it. I think that took us
through our questions. I recommend you go check her out. Her book is – this one that I’ve been reading is Centurion and it’s number four in the series..?
TK: Two. It’s number two.. .he’s my [muffled] No, you
don’t have to read them in order – they’re standalone and I did
that on purpose. I wanted you to be able to – whichever book calls out to you – read that first.
Melissa: Well, I liked this cover so… We met at one, I’m sure I talked about this before I introduced this; but we met at a signing
In Tampa, no, in Jacksonville. Then we were at a signing in Tampa and I’m trying to get over to her. I can’t, because
there’s all these women fondling her books. So biggest crowd… had to push through these to get to her. So, thank you so much, Tamara for [feedback] today and I have all the stuff in the show notes and in January when you have your new book out I’ll have you back and we’ll talk about your new book again.
TK: Okay…awesome! Thank you so much! Melissa: Okay…bye bye.
TK: Okay… bye bye!
Melissa: That’s it for this week on Books Cubed.
Next week, I will have an interview with Carey Pack ,who
writes my favorite genre of all time…which is time travel… and these are her books in the series that I’m reading…
there we go… so I’ll have her next week.
She’s really interesting and she has some good advice
for authors – for new authors if you’re an author – and if you’re a reader and like time travel. And, she writes LGBT.
So, come and and take a listen to that.
Subscribe to the show. Leave me a comment…say hello and I guess that’s it for now…
and go read a good book!
Links:
The TK Lawyer book I’m currently reading, Centurion: https://amzn.to/2R9pHNt
The rest of TK Lawyer’s books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2NYwdET
For more about Tamara and to find her novels elsewhere in the world: www.tklawyerauthor.wordpress.com
Ferdinand the Bull : https://amzn.to/2yw39zI
Have you read book one of my June Nash Misadventure series yet? You can find the debut novel, How to Sex Your Snake, on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2ytYcaF
The prequel, How to Bungle Your Jungle, is free on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2q4qrYH
For more on me and where to find my books everywhere else, check out my website: https://melissabanczak.com
Need to interview someone and want some great questions? Check out John Fox’s 50 Brilliant Original Questions to Ask an Author. You’ll find them here: https://bit.ly/2R7QQjU
I’ll see you next time! Go read a good book,
Melissa
ps. Some of these are affiliate links to help support my never ending grocery habit.
Melissa Banczak 