Chris K Jones decided to give it all up for his dream to write a story. What he found was that it wasn’t as easy as we all think it is. But after researching, courses and much perserverance Chris finished his first book. And now? He’s caught the bug and is writing another! Come hear about his journey to writing, marketing and learning this new business pursuit called being an author.
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TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS HERE:
Kat
Hello, everyone. Today I have with me Chris K. Jones. Hi, Chris, how are you doing?
Chris
Hi, Kat. How are you? Thanks for having me on.
Kat
Of course. Thanks for coming. There are so many things to talk about today with your book Headcase. But before we get into it, would you just introduce a little bit about yourself to the listeners?
Chris
Sure. I am a recovering serial entrepreneur who always wanted to write and it was a sign of what I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to be a starving artist, so I went out and had a life as building companies and I was the chief financial officer of my company. So I was CFO by day and write at night and then finally got to a point, sold my company and I was able to focus on my writing and I wrote my first book. It came out a year ago, this month
Kat
Awesome. How does it feel to have the book? Like two different dreams, right? So you have your company that’s really cool to have built a company and then to be able to quit that and write a book and have it out, like, finish the book and have it out. Does it feel like a different kind of success?
Chris
Yeah, absolutely. Very different type of success, as well as just a very different experience of being. I kind of joked that I’m an extrovert in the world’s loneliest profession. I never realized that until we went into the pandemic, and my last day at the company I co-founded as chief financial officer, that was January 31, 2020. We went right into the pandemic. I kind of had a month to figure out how I was going to do with my writing and this and that, and then we went into the pandemic. So then it was really easy because I had nothing to do but write. Then I decided my attorney sent me a notice about Barbados, he’s from Barbados, and I’d been there many times and that they had this welcome stamp program. So in September 2020, I packed everything up and lived down in Barbados for close to two years.
Kat
Oh, that’s nice. They let you in during the pandemic.
Chris
Yeah, so they wanted people to come down because tourism was over. There was no tourists. So yeah, went down. I had a one-year visa, which I still have. I renewed the visa and I was able to write my first book from the beach. Yeah, it wasn’t too hard, but I did realize it was also motivating because I realized growing up with nothing and going out and working real hard and lots of sacrifice, I knew each day like, hey, this is the writer’s dream, so sit your ass down, get to work. So I had my process get up, exercise, meditate, and then sit down, writing. And yeah, I got to take a break and go for a swim and then come back. But that was the motivating factor because I knew other people didn’t have this opportunity that I did, and I had to take advantage of it. And yes, it was very great and motivating, and I had a lot of research I had to do. But with Google and Google Maps, there’s no excuse. If you’re a reader, if your reader is taken out by poor research, that’s on you, because there’s no reason for poor research. Everything is writing. I can use the searches that I did and found tons of articles was really amazing. So we’re very lucky as writers that we don’t have to sit in a library all day, that we just go out to Wikipedia, Google Maps for places where you’re getting pictures and images and things like that. And also fashion is, I do integrate fashion into my book about what he’s wearing. There’s pro athletes and he’s a psychologist, and I like fashion. So it was like finding the type clothes that they would wear. And women, I don’t know what women wear. So I had to research, like, label what the dresses were and make sure it was the right one and then check with my friends. I’m like, is this a good one? I think as writers, we’re really in a great place to be able to get all our research done so quickly. Well, you can write anywhere, in your home, you can be on the train, you can do anything, and you can really write anywhere you need to be.
Kat
Yeah, well, I love your attitude, though. Wherever you are, it is true that if you have the opportunity to write a book, no matter even if you’re writing it after work, if you have found the time to carve out that time to write, it’s awesome. Wherever you’re doing it from. And just having that, I think it’s the mental block more than anything to get over has like, seeing it as an opportunity and a blessing just to be able to get it out right. Write it down on paper.
Chris
That’s what I did. I know CFO by day and came home and wrote at night and yeah, it was hard. Luckily, I have a lot of neuroplasticity between both my right and left hemispheres of my brain, so I can make that switch from very analytical type of work. And then going into the creative, the interesting thing that I had to learn was my whole life as an athlete, coach, entrepreneur, I’ve been very results driven. Writing is process driven.
Kat
That’s true.
Chris
And that is not my best thing. So learning not just to create my spreadsheet with my pages per day and all my analytics and metrics and just say, just sit and write and enjoy the process, that’s very hard for me. So I’ve had to learn to reframe my brain and retrain it. And it’s okay that I only got 1500 words done today, that’s okay. Did I have a good experience? Did I feel that what I wrote was quality work? Do I feel that I’m continuing the arc of the characters and feeling good about what I did? And also working 12-14 hours days was routine. Six, seven days a week when you’re an entrepreneur. That’s the way it was with a startup. But I find that after 5 hours of good, solid, creative work, I was done. Dimishing returns after that point where it was just every once in a while I got in a real zone and I would put seven, eight, nine hours in. But it was pure joy, right? It was good, but I knew, like, after that 5 hours I could start seeing it and like, okay, I’m done.
Kat
Yeah, that’s true. And accepting that is really a battle as well. I’m really results driven, too. I need some way to measure what I’m doing and I can get almost addicted. So I have to put away the Google spreadsheet because in the end, like you said, if you put 5000 words down that you’re going to delete 4000 of them because you just push too hard, what’s the point?
Chris
You hit it on the head. The pushing part. Like, I can muscle a spreadsheet, right? I could just bang on it for however long. But you can’t muscle a manuscript. It has to just come, it has to flow. And you have to be willing to not just put the words down because you have this metric. The one thing I did have to do to feed, because I did have this constant CFO in my brain going, hey, what are you going to do? When are you done? What are the results? When are you going to make some money on this and this and that? And just to tell him to be quiet. I kept a timesheet. So, I logged my time every day. And so it took me when people say, how long did it take you to write? I can tell you exactly. 714 and a half hours.
Kat
Oh, that’s awesome.
Chris
Okay. From December 2020 to almost October, November 2021. So I started it in late 2020 and then finished it in 2021 and then published it in March of 2022. But it was good because I wanted to know, like, okay, how long does it take and what can I base the next one on? And be realistic. Also, versions. I mean, god, the published version was version 8.4, that many rewrites. Yeah, so I’m really big on version control that just comes from tech stuff. And it was really good. And I had two editors, designers, and my editors are great, and I learned a lot from them. But even then, I think the next time when I do this one, not only will I have my developmental editor and my line editor, I’m getting a proofreader too, because we all miss stuff and I think we got book fatigue. We definitely got book fatigue.
Kat
We know the story too well, right?
Chris
Yeah. And that proofreader you really need to find someone who is just… as one author told me, a friend of mine, he said, your proofreader should be annoying. If your proofreader isn’t just completely annoying and questioning you on every little thing, they’re not doing their job.
Kat
That’s a funny way to put it.
Chris
Yeah. They should be absolutely almost like on the spectrum type of just beyond anal. And that’s a good, good thing because they’re going to catch stuff that you’re going to like, oh, crap.
Kat
Well, it’s interesting because you’re an entrepreneur that takes a certain personality, but you seem very humble in like because a lot of writers don’t do well with editors, multiple editors. We just feel like, oh, you’re changing my baby. It feels very personal to people. So having a very anal proofreader, I can imagine quite a few writers would just be very upset about that and almost take it personally.
Chris
Well, I guess that’s part of the advantage because to me, best idea wins. And I don’t care where it comes from. I want Headcase to be in my series. I want it to be the best product. And I don’t have a problem calling my art a product and I want it to be the best product that it can, because I’m writing this to not only entertain and it covers… about the book real quick. So Headcase is about Dr. Andrew Beck, who’s the go to sports psychologist for troubled athletes. And there’s not a head he can’t fix except his own. So when his own childhood traumas and gambling addiction gets the best of him, he makes a bet using his insider knowledge on his athletes. And it leads him down this dark path of blackmail, mysterious murder and life or death bluffing. And while it’s a thriller, it also talks another part of his about mental health and sports as a competitive athlete, spending time around athletes and Olympians and learning just some of the issues that they go on their off field and just how many of them had traumatic and horrific childhoods growing up and being able to really talk about that. You are seeing in many places, like in shows where there is a psychologist, like in Ted Lasso, but you never see it in session, where you’re in session with Andrew and his clients. Where he’s very compartmentalized. He’s great with his clients, but then he can’t even see his own addictions and his own traumas and what they’ve done to him. Yeah. The mental health part is part of it as well. So I want this to be something that people, one, they just enjoy. They pick up 20 minutes before they go to bed and they had a little bit of enjoy. They get a break from their difficult life. And if I can do that, if I can entertain them, then I’ve succeeded. Whether I sell one book or a million, it’s really the people who, the emails I get back and saying how much they enjoyed it and they’re actually pretty surprised because I think no one had very high expectations, including my mom. So I have a quote on my website. So I bring my mom down to Barbados and she’s reading like, a draft and she’s going through it. And every time she finds like a little typo, she gets all excited. And then she’s about three quarters of the way through and she turns to me and goes, Chris, I didn’t think it was going to be this good.
Kat
Thanks, mom.
Chris
You want to restate that? So, yeah, a lot of my friends and people I knew and colleagues, they bought the book just to help me out, but then they wrote back like, wow, this was really good.
Kat
Oh, that’s nice.
Chris
Yeah, it’s nice to know because people never saw that side of me. Writing, it’s something I always want. I always say that was the best form of therapy I ever had and being able to be present with what I was feeling and how my characters can make me feel. And I’ve been in a cafe writing and get choked up. Is anyone seeing me because of what my characters are going through? And sometimes people have said, are these real people? I’m like, no, I’ve made them all up.
Kat
Right. But you drew from your experience of just 20 years in the business of sports and coaching and all that.
Chris
Yeah, I worked as a young man in professional sports teams, but it was a lot of my own competition and just I competed in judo. I was a wrestler in college and then competed in judo and then also coached soccer and just things I saw, things I spoke to research with other athletes, spoke to Olympians and other athletes, and just a lot of research. Michael Phelps’ Weight of Gold was really, you should watch that. That just tells how tough it is for even gold medal winners. I asked that to a lot of people, like, who do you think are the most happiest the gold, silver, or bronze winners? So who would you think are the most happiest gold medalist?
Kat
I feel like it’s a trick question.
Chris
So go with that.
Kat
I guess we would always say gold, but now I feel like you’re going to say silver.
Chris
The bronze medalist medalists, because a lot of times they weren’t even expected to win. So they’re happy they got a medal.
Kat
They got up on the podium.
Chris
Or, if they were expected to win and they just had a bad showing, they’re motivated to go back and go, interesting, next is a silver medalist. Because they made it. And even though they just missed that, it’s the same thing where they expect it or not if they’re expected. Okay, just came up short. I’m going to work harder. But the gold medalist, after all this fanfare, they go home and people have moved on, and there’s like this emptiness about 30 to 60 days after the games, where some of them, really, even someone in my own sport, he committed suicide. And it’s not unusual for a lot of athletes to commit suicide because of just the depression and just the let down. And like, what do I do now? What happens? I’ve hit the pinnacle. I’m 20 something years old. Yeah, it’s really quite interesting, all the research that came through about athletes, and, yeah, they go through a lot, and they’re starting to get sympathy, which is great, but they don’t get a lot because, wow, they’re rich, famous, they’re playing a game, they have everything they want. Why should I feel sorry for them? But everybody deserves compassion. Everybody deserves understanding, and it doesn’t matter where you came from, but what most of athletes had to come through in order to just be a professional. You’re talking about just small.
Kat
Like giving up their childhood, really, to become a professional, right?
Chris
Then even after. So I even cover that in the book about what happens when it’s all over and you’re in your 20s, maybe 30 years old, and your career is over.
Kat
That’s so crazy, isn’t it?
Chris
This is all you’ve done since the time you’re six years old. You don’t know anything else, right? That’s how dealing with that, and I dealt with that in the book as well.
Kat
It spans a lot of information then. So you had to do all this research, but at the same time, that’s a little depressing. How did you deal with that, just yourself as a writer, if it was just a tough day of research?
Chris
Yeah, I think it was my job as the storyteller to really tell what’s going on. And yes, there’s things like if I read them aloud or this or that, I get choked up every single time. And it’s interesting. It’s like I wrote it, right? Just like saying things I laugh at every time. I’m like, is that egotistical of me? Or like, I laugh at my own joke? But it’s funny. And the same thing. There’s things that just get me every single time that will bring a tear to my eye and choke me up. And it’s just hopefully the reader is getting that impact, too. When they talk about the things that happen in their families and how their childhood was. And so much really does go back to that and the generational trauma. So, yeah, I take it. No, it’s kind of hard to be depressed when I look up and 85 and sunny every single day. I will tell you this. There were times when after days of doing this, I would get up. I’m like, I need to see a real human being. Funny people in my head. Like, I need to see what a real human and go out and talk to people, because you do get caught up. And the same thing, while I was going through all the bookmarking stuff and readings and doing things, there was a time in the fall I was like, I miss my characters. I haven’t hung out with them in a long time. I actually remember feeling like, oh, I miss them.
Kat
Yes, writers are weird when it comes down to that point of like, I haven’t been alone all day, but I have been alone all day and I need yeah, we get a bit weird, don’t we? So I do want to ask you because you’re, you know, a CFO by day. Like, I’m married to a CFO, so that’s a lot of work. You guys are always working. I mean, now you get to write for a living, but how did you find the time to learn how to write a psychological thriller? I feel like that’s a big step right there. That’s not just like, oh, I’m going to write a short story, or I’m just going to write a memoir. I feel like psychological thriller that takes some plotting and some planning, and things have to come together, right? And research and all that. So did you wait until after you quit to really learn the structure of that, or did you do it before?
Chris
No, it was like 2016. I really started to take my writing seriously. I started doing playwriting. I got accepted to our local theater and I wrote a play called Twisted Metal about two Marines and their PTSD. I tend to write about mental health more than anything. And then I came up with this idea for Headcase. And I actually started out as a TV pilot, and I hired a screenwriter to teach me the business because I was way too busy running my company and teach me how to write that. And then I wrote it. Of course, you submit it to contest. It got destroyed. They just ripped the shreds and you do it all over.
Kat
They just love that, don’t they?
Chris
Yeah, that’s all right. And then we went into the writing, and I worked on that for a while as a screenplay. It started to do well. I won contests in England and Toronto and LA. So I won a bunch… of New York, a bunch of contests. I thought okay, great. And then the writer strike happened. And then we went into pandemic, and I asked a person in the business, I’m like, what should I do? Should I turn it into a novel? She’s like, yeah, do that. I’m like, okay, great. And so I had to learn now, after spending years of writing dialogue, I’m very comfortable with writing dialogue. I love dialogue. It’s a lot of fun. I had to learn to write narrative, and I was that’s probably why I went to screenplays over doing a novel in the beginning, because I just really enjoy the dialogue. But what I found was surprising was the narrative. I was dreading the narrative. I was absolutely dreading it. But it gave me a lot of freedom because now I can because in screenplays, the writer is not supposed to direct from the page, not supposed to say what the actor should do, what they should think, look. But now I’m the cinematographer. I’m the director, and I can tell how Andrew is feeling. And I take him through. So you really are with him all along. You know what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling in his body, what he hears, what he tastes sounds like. I really made it very experiential, so the person really goes on. And then the narrative was freeing for me because I was able to now really get into his head. I told it from a single point of view. It’s only from Andrew’s point of view. And that was a choice. I thought was also recommended by one of my editors, just do that. So you are really with him all the time. He makes bad decisions. And yet it’s interesting when he’s this flawed hero that people still feel for him, and he’s like, come on, what did you do? He’s always like because his trauma gets involved, and he just makes bad decisions, even though he’s smartest guy in the room or thinks he is.
Kat
That’s interesting. I mean, I talk to on the podcast all the time about this idea of learning the craft. So it really sounds like you were very open from the beginning to just learn, because I think that’s another ego trip. Sometimes that ego block that writers trip over is like, if I have a story in my head, I should be able to get it from my head to the paper with minimal intervention from experts. I just find that is pretty prevalent. But just because we have a talent of storytelling doesn’t mean that it can get from brain to paper easily.
Chris
Right. I am not concise. So having an editor that helped me become more concise, but also that just comes from years and years of martial arts training. There’s always someone bigger, better, faster, stronger. You’re always going to get your butt kicked at some point or not. So you learn humility pretty fast, especially in judo, where it’s a Japanese art and you’re just going in with a big ego, you’re going to get your butt kick. A lot of this just being in team, I think humility is really important. And again, if my goal is to produce the best possible work, if a five-year-old’s got a good idea, I’m going to use it. I don’t care, right? If you came up with like, oh, wow. Now, that being said, right? So if a reader is taken out and they tell me about it, I want to hear what they have to say, no matter what. Even though I think it’s the best bit of prose I’ve ever written in my entire life, if it took them out, I want to understand, why did it take you out? What happened? What was it about that would take you out? Was it the fact? Was it the feeling? Was it the wording? And I want to know that. So then I can go back. And if someone gets taken out now, if they say, Chris, you know what you should do with that character? You should do blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s your story, I’m going to write mine. You can keep that, right? There’s a difference. But any reader who says they were taken out by that, by anything, they were taken out of the story, I need to consider it. And I may say, no, that’s you, right? But more than likely, I bet there’s a way I can make that more clear. I bet there’s a way that I can make it more concise. I bet I can make it more powerful. So I see it as a challenge, right? As like, okay, that didn’t work for you. Let me see, can I go sharpen that tool a little bit more? And that’s just going to make me a better writer. So, yeah, going through it with a good dose of humility, I didn’t really think about it like that. I just want the best story and I’m hiring an editor to help me make it the best story. So, I mean, I spent the first part of my career, my first company was advising people as a consultant and kind of working with startups. And there was nothing more annoying when I could see stuff happening. And they’re paying me to give them advice and then they don’t follow it. So the same thing now. It’s the other way around. I’m paying people for their advice. I’m going to follow it. I’m going to do what they say because they’re the expert and I’m the newbie. I’m talented, I believe I can tell a story, but I’m still maybe a yellow belt. I still have a long way to go. And that’s the exciting part for me because I know I’m going to improve. I know book two is going to be better than book one.
Kat
Right. I love your attitude about it. I’ve heard that about martial arts because I think writing is, as you’ve said, a very solitary career, right? And so you don’t have that team aspect. You can get very shut in into your office or your space or at the beach, wherever you write, but that outlook is very correct in just like, seeing it as a challenge and seeing it, how can I get better? And I want to be better at this. We also have to realize that editors are experts and so they’re going to tell you the best, right? So just having that attitude. I love getting editing back now as an “older” writer, putting quotes around that everyone. And I think this is part of the journey also of just like hitting a certain part of life, right, where you realize, yeah, it’s okay if I don’t have all the answers. You spent years gathering all these answers, so please now give them to me and mark up my page and let me see what it is and just having the confidence to be able to take what I need to and learn and keep going. So you said that this is going to be a series or are you writing one? Is it going to follow the same doctor or how is that going to go?
Chris
Same guy, I leave it kind of a little bit of a cliffhanger where he’s in trouble. So now I’m working on book two, now. I was hoping to get it done last year, but definitely the book marketing side I struggled with.
Kat
Book marketing is rough, isn’t it? It takes time. Let me ask you this. Why did you choose indie publishing over traditionally published?
Chris
Because I was not what any of the publishing companies are going to look for.
Kat
Really? Why do you think that?
Chris
Yeah. I just don’t think the voice of a middle aged, white male they’re not looking for okay. Anyway.
Kat
And they’re about to collapse.
Chris
I think the other side, too, is from my research, they don’t do that much for you. And my friends who I spoke to, they didn’t help with the marketing. And one of my friends, they actually launched three other books the same week that his was coming out. They released…
Kat
The same house?
Chris
Yeah. And he wasn’t pleased about that. You still have to do most of the marketing yourself. I am fortunate that I have the resources where it wasn’t a big deal. And Amazon makes it really easy. They do make it super easy.
Kat
And you earn more money just to come down to the nitty gritty. You’re going to do the work anyway. You must be pretty comfortable with the idea of this is a business because you’re an entrepreneur. I think that all writers these days, even traditionally, but mostly us indie writers are entrepreneurs. That’s what you’re doing. You’re creating a business, right? An entertainment business.
Chris
Entertainment, yeah. Marketing was never my strong suit.
Kat
You’re learning writing and marketing.
Chris
Yeah. And I’m really bad at it. I don’t think that way. I’m a pretty smart guy and really good with analytical finance strategy and on the creative side. But when it comes to things on marketing, my brain just doesn’t really think about those things. And when I do, I’d rather you just punch me in the face than have to do it. It would be less painful, I think. So, everything to do with it now. I love giving book readings. I love being out in front of people. Like I said, I’m an extrovert. I can do Q&A all day, these types of things. I love doing this stuff. It’s fun for me. But if you want me to be the one to go out and get the people to be it in their seats, just break my finger. It’ll be easy. Yeah. So now in the next book, I’m going to do it a little bit better and find people who can help me. I don’t like social media. I don’t think about posting stuff. It’s just not something, although extroverted, I’m not a person who wants to broadcast my life. And I just don’t think about things that and then things that are actually useful, you know, where I’ve talked to other people and you know, it’s just it’s just not an area like so I’d rather not do it. So I just have to figure out a way. I did investigate in some ads. I thought that was a waste of money.
Kat
Well, and it’s harder starting out, as they say, with every book, it gets easier for people to find you. It’s horrible to hear, but when I was writing, way back when I was a student and my first manuscript got rejected and Orson Scott Card was sitting in my boyfriend at the time’s restaurant, and he was serving him. He didn’t know who he was because my husband doesn’t read. He reads nonfiction. So Orson Scott Card is there, and he was telling him her manuscript got rejected. What should she do? And he said, write another book. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe he said that. But it’s true. It’s true, isn’t it? You just write another one.
Chris
I think I also had unrealistic expectations just because in that case, where my startup mentality came, everything goes pretty fast. You’re really moving light. And this is a glacial business. I have worked in 37 different industries, and this is the hardest to break in for the least amount of return on investment.
Kat
Oh, my gosh.
Chris
From my experience and the amount of money, I paid it right, so I don’t think I get paid. I paid it right, but I do think it’s still… so for me, I’m trying not to think of it as a business, because then when I started launching the book, I did, and the CFO creeped back in and kind of took over and really killed the creative voice. So I think the other thing is just producing a bunch of books. I saw an article in the Times about this romance writer. I forget her name, but she had the top seven books in romance.
Kat
Colleen Hoover?
Chris
Yeah, I think so. And then I looked at like, I said, all right, I’m going to look up each one of those books. I’m like, oh, 2006, 2008. So I’m looking at mine, I’m like, I’m six months into this, very unrealistic expectations that this takes time, it takes years. So I said, you know what? I’m just going to focus on getting the second one. Let me get my process down. Let me get my writing process down. Let me get better as a writer. Let me really improve in my craft. And I’ll worry about sales and things like that later, or just I believe that I’ll come across the right people in the right place. And who knows? It could be two years from now. And then all of a sudden it’s picked up as a show or an athlete reads and goes, oh, my god, you got to read this. And he’s got a gazillion followers. And then all of a sudden, you just don’t know.
Kat
I think Colleen Hoover got it because people were TikToking it, and she wasn’t. It was another reader. So I think you’re right, and I think this goes into mental health as well as for writers, is just really reminding ourselves, right? This is an art. Art is glacial, and it’s just like inch-by-inch and at the same time just keep writing. Because that feeds us, right? We want to write. We have the stories in our head. We want to get it out. And just knowing little by little, I mean, I think it’s great that Colleen Hoover got to that point, but not everyone is Harry Potter lady Rowling. They knew where this was going and what they could get from it. That’s after like, 50 rejections or something that she had, right? So just knowing that and reminding ourselves of that is always good, I think.
Chris
I think it’s so hard to tell when it’s going to get picked up and whatnot and when something hits the zeitgeist as mental health and sports is starting to get rich, people as athletes are coming out and talking about it, it’s really great. But who knows? So this year after feeling even and my best friend is great, and I wouldn’t know what to do without him because I’m so results. I’m like, oh, man, I really failed last year. He’s like, you put out your book, you put out the audio. You won several awards. How is that a failure? Because I’m looking at numbers, right? I got my first royalty check, and it was less than 1 hour of my consulting time. I’m like, oh my god. But then I said, luckily enough, I don’t need this to live on. I have other things to do. I can focus on it. And I know that’s not for every writer, but I also think if you go into writing, for the money. Unless you’re a nonfiction, if you’re a nonfiction author and you’ve done well in business and you have, like, a methodology, and you’re putting that in, and that’s going to lead to speaking engagements. And that’s your business. And your book is your calling card. Great. That’s awesome. And that’s usually where the top 10% of writers think there’s less than 10% who make over 150,000. And most of that’s from speaking, not from their writing. But that’s okay. That’s okay. This is your calling card. Love it. I love nonfiction, too. If you’re a fiction writer, if you’re going in it for the money, I think that’s a tough thing to do. I think it’s kind of like being a day trader and expecting to pay your mortgage with your day trading. I think that’s a very dangerous point. And I think also writing to market, one, you don’t know, you don’t know. And I honestly don’t think that anyone really knows what’s going to be a success, what’s not. I mean, for every Silent Patient there is. And I love his book. I loved it. Alex Michaelides, that just his first book hit. But that was so many years as a failed screenwriter and then his first book, boom.
Kat
Right? You always have to look behind, right?
Chris
But that’s the exception, not the rule. So one of the things I did for a series is I went and read David Baldacci’s first book, John Grisham’s first book, and Lee Child’s first book. And I wanted to compare where I was compared to where these wonderful authors that I love and adore, and I want to see, all right. Their first book, right? Same thing. All right.
Kat
That’s interesting that you point that out, though. Their first book. Not their latest book.
Chris
No, I went back to their first one, right, and see, like, okay, where am I compared to them? Like, okay, I think I’m holding my own. I think I told a good story, not kind of compared to what their sales did or this or that, but just like this story. Where were they in their journey? Where am I in my journey? And I’m just a beginner. And I think keeping that beginner’s mind is important because you stay excited and you stay motivated, and you want to just tell your story. And hopefully for me, how I want to measure success is that some person someday comes up to me and goes, Chris, because of your book, I changed what I was doing. I got help. I stopped whatever I was doing, whether it was drugs or alcohol or gambling, and I got sober and straight. If someone said that to me, I think, oh, my god, then I succeeded because I influenced some person’s life, right? And I made them make a change.
Kat
You went into this really thinking, and I think that’s great to have more than just the story, but mental health is really important to you, right? And you said, even for yourself, writing was a therapy for you. And I’ve heard several authors say that their first book was just, like, the best therapy that they could go through. So you went into this with that really focus of mental health. Was it mostly for men? Like, focusing on mental health for men or just mental health?
Chris
No, I mean, every character in there has got their issues, every character. Obviously, I’m coming from a male perspective, and I’m still working on my female voice. One of my readers, one of my readers, she said it was a very interesting look into the male psyche.
Kat
Oh, that’s cool.
Chris
This is, like, how men think. I’m like, Well, I didn’t write it like that. I’m a male.
Kat
I’m a male, and I think this.
Chris
How my character thinks.
Kat
Well, but you’ve been around a lot of sports, is dominated a lot by men, right? So, I mean, that’s cool because a lot of books are more female psyche.
Chris
That was interesting. It wasn’t my intent, right? But I think it’s very important to work on. But I have very strong female characters. I grew up around very strong women my mom, my grandparents. I grew up with very strong women in my life, and I like strong women characters. And I think the women in Headcase are also very strong. It’s very interesting when some of the guys would come back and one of their favorite characters was this very strong, feisty, redheaded, Scottish woman, Lori, and she didn’t play around yet. She had a good heart and was really trying to protect Andrew from himself in this gambling den, the Five Iron, where they were from her boss Fergus, and who was really getting him into a really deep, dark place where he could control him. So it’s interesting. One of the feedback that I got and people really like that character and yeah, she’s a badass. And I like writing strong female characters. I’m learning my female voice. I’m not an expert at it, I write males very good. And I write kids voices very good.
Kat
Oh, that’s awesome. Hey, we can’t do everything perfectly, but is mental health going to be a theme going forward throughout the whole series, do you think?
Chris
Yeah, definitely, with this and everything else, even other books I have that I have my list of things to do to get through. I think mental health is always going to be a part of it because I think it’s something that we all have. We all have our traumas and we all have our experiences. I had mine and helping work through it. I had eating disorders and from trying to lose weight for wrestling, and I was bulimic for many years just so I could eat and then make weight. And that did a lot of damage to my head, my body issues. I didn’t prepare well to go on because I just wanted to beat the scale. I was fighting the scale, but that’s why judo was so great for me. It was actually my Buddhist teacher was the one who told me to take judo and it changed everything for me because I went out in a very healthy way with a healthy mindset. I didn’t cut weight, I played my natural weight. I had fun with it and I really was focused on the opponent and I did really well. I won a lot and I won tournaments and it did quite well. So, yeah, mental health is always going to be a part of anything I write because I just think it’s so important that it’s something I work on every day on myself. I think that’s great, how to have a good approach to life and make a difference. At this point, I just want to be able to make a difference and hopefully I can do that with my writing. I want to ask your opinion on something. I’ve been thinking about this with this whole I know this is off track with this ChatGPT thing or IPT, whatever it is, and people now writing books through AI. I thought about writing in my next book. Like, none of this book was done with using chat or GPT. Yeah. None of this book was inquired using artificial intelligence.
Kat
We might have to start doing that.
Chris
Some people know. This all came from my brain. I don’t think an AI engine, which I actually have a company that uses AI, can write the characters that I can write.
Kat
No, I don’t think so
Chris
Don’t feel threatened by it.
Kat
No, exactly. Everyone is seeing, unfortunately, what it’s doing is it’s causing, especially in the short story world, it’s causing a traffic jam. So people have started to push send them in. And so all the literary magazines and that sort of world, they’re getting inundated with just this junk. And so now there’s this contest that I love doing, NYC Midnight. And they now have a whole terms and conditions there. If it even smells slightly of ChatGPT or AI, they’ll just toss it. And I think that’s good. But of course, there’s trolls everywhere now, so they’re just going to make this sort of traffic jam we talked about. You got to sell that book, man. Go ahead and get a ChatGPT to spit it out. Good luck selling it. That’s the rest.
Chris
Well, I think the next thing will come is just someone’s going to come up with just an AI detector.
Kat
Yeah, probably.
Chris
Right. So you have the offense right now. You’re going to come up with defense, right? So same thing. If this one person has this one move that you can’t beat no matter what, someone will come up with a defense to it. So the next thing that’s going to come out is an AI detector. Oh, yeah, we did. Because I’m sure the universities, they’ll sell it to all the universities because all the teachers are concerned about kids doing plagiarism. And to me, that’s an ethics issue. And I think that’s a failure in ethics that you feel like because of all these cheat codes and games and you hear about these hacks rather than this is hard, and it’s good to do very hard things in life. It takes sacrifice. I made a lot of sacrifices in my life.
Kat
It builds character, right?
Chris
Yeah. And I don’t think you get anywhere without hard work, sacrifice and skill.
Kat
Yeah. I don’t think you’re going to feel good about yourself either if you take the easy way out. Great. You wrote a book. ChatGPT wrote a book for you. Okay, what does that even mean? You didn’t write a book. You slapped your name on something that a robot created. And technically the robot didn’t create it. They took it from the millions of places that it sees on the web. So they took the words of other people to put into your book. So you’re right, it is just an ethics problem. And I don’t worry about it because people, if they want the magic pill, I can’t do anything about that. I would rather struggle with my characters and write. We miss our characters. We got to go write with them. I don’t know.
Chris
Write yourself into a corner and then.
Kat
Go into despair and then eventually have your mom say, this is good. I mean, that is like the best thing ever. Don’t worry about it, guys. Just keep going.
Chris
Just get through it. Just put in the time, put in the sweat. Like you said, Kat, that you’ll have something that you’re proud of. So I’m very proud of it. The audiobook, actually, the audiobook is amazing. The actor who did it, I had 60 different speaking parts, so I had to count them all. And he did all of them. And so I got New York accents, New England accents, two Scottish characters. All different people from different places. He was amazing. PJ. Oakland an award winning audio. And it was for me. I totally recommend it. If you can swing it, like hearing your work read by someone else, it’s really wonderful. And he’s a professional, trained actor, so he bought my characters alive. And the audiobook is absolutely fantastic.
Kat
That’s cool. That’s my next step. I’ll be doing a Kickstarter to get some audio in there. But I love I mean, there’s that other question, too, of using AI for audio. And I understand both sides of the argument. It sort of brings down the cost. But then I feel bad for the actors. I haven’t quite decided on that one.
Chris
I think what I would do for that is when I feel like my book was done I might use that AI audio for myself and my editor and like, all right, how does it sound? But then eventually give it to a real actor because there’s just going to be an energy, honestly, not to get too wooish, but there’s an energy that they bring to it that a machine does not and cannot. It’s not capable. And that energy is going to resound and connect. Think about the books that you’ve listened to, like Artemis from Andy Weir, that Rosario Dawson did. I can listen to that all day long because she’s amazing. Yeah, right. And you find those actors that you’ve listened to and they bring something to it. That’s true.
Kat
You can’t beat it. Honestly, a good actor on audio, there’s nothing better. Especially when they can do the accents.
Chris
Yeah, and mine were tough. And I think using it for yourself like I’ll use on Word, the read feature, because I want to hear it, too. And I think that’s a good thing. I think using it for yourself as a training tool. But as far as the publishing, I get it. I understand because money is money and this stuff isn’t cheap, it’s expensive. But I think if you think of your book, your art, that it has to be the best possible and bring out like you want it to touch somebody and affect them or just entertain them, right? And I think that’s what happens when you confuse the money part with I got to get it out there. I got to make it money and this and that with just this is the creation of something from your brain and your mind and sharing it. And that’s easy for me to say and I understand that because I don’t have to rely on my book writing. But it is something I think that’s important and it’s hard for me to remember that too, because it is because I have brain.
Kat
It’s good to be realistic as a writer too, though, that most people, if they’re on their own income, if they’re the primary income holder, the chances of quitting that job to become a full-time writer are pretty low. In fact, we interview people because of that. Those people who have made it that far, again, have been in the industry for a while, and in kudos to them, they work hard at it. It is a full-time job, and they’ve figured out a way to do it, but there aren’t very many. And so, just to be very realistic about, why are you writing? What do you want from it? Have your dreams, but also be realistic. And lots of people do other things. The majority of the indie authors that I know who work full time, me included, I make my money teaching over selling books. Now, is it still my dream to get to the point where I sell those books? Absolutely. But I need a couple more. I have three out, three more coming. But I have learned, I think, especially when you are starting out, of course, you have those dreams, like one book, and it will hit. At the same time even if it does hit, it will eventually fall off. It’s an art form. People move on, they’ve read the book. They told their friends, they read the book. Now they’re on to other things. There are people out there that read like 300 books a year. It will fall off. You will have to write another book, unless it’s the nonfiction calling card. So why are you writing? And so I always tell people that I coach, like, is this something that fulfills you just because you’re writing and you’re learning and you just love it, then it’s worth doing, even if it can sometimes make you want to punch a wall.
Chris
Yeah, absolutely.
Kat
I was doing my taxes and I was like, Look, I earned $15 last month. And it’s just one of the my husband was asking me, like, what what happened this month versus that month? I said I wasn’t doing promotions, I was doing something else. So it is one of those things. I know Kirsten Oliphant, she spends 5000 a month, or at least did to make 5000, so she would sell. So that it’s just all it’s a business. And once you get to that point, you have 20-25 books. It’s a business. You have to constantly be selling it. You have to be spending the money. And it’s just constantly changing that mindset.
Chris
If you think about the business model and why it’s so difficult and why I said this one is with many businesses, you have a subscription model, so right. Your book cost $20. They’re paying $20 a month for something. This person, you had this time and effort to acquire the customer, they buy one book. It’s only one book at a time. And now you got to do the whole thing again. Right? It’s not like they’re buying a book every month from you or it’s not repeatable where you get that customer and you have them forever. And the only bad thing about Amazon is you never know who your customers are. So you don’t have that type of relationship. And again, where I struggle with I’m like, build your mailing list. How? Every time I pray is like, how do you do that? Yes, I went through the people that I know and yes, they joined and this and that, but okay, how do I get people who don’t know me? So these are really hard things to do. And again, it’s a model where you get sell one book, you make $4 or $5 at most.
Chris
And you got to go find the next.
Chris
You can’t even buy one of Starbucks with that. So it’s very interesting. And you spent all this effort time, you did a reading, you did that, you may never see them again. They might not write a review.
Kat
And you’ll do a promotion where you’ll put it on sale, and then you’ll start getting emails of, well, the sale is over, but can you sell it to me for that sale price, or can you give it to me for free? Lots of people get books for free now. And so there are times that it’s frustrating where you just want to say, I put a lot of time into this book. And I tell people all the time, if you buy a print book, the author is getting maybe $3 from it. Maybe with paper prices going up and shipping fees going up, it’s gone down a lot. I had to up my book because one of my books is pretty long. Amazon told me it has to be up to $17, otherwise you will owe us every time somebody buys this.
Chris
That happened with me on Ingramspark and Lulu. So on ingramspark I was like, negative. I had to increase the price.
Kat
You have to pay them. So it’s just these little things behind the scenes that people don’t understand. And I get it. It feels like a lot to spend $18 per book, but you can get it on ebook. But it just goes into a lot. And it’s a rough industry.
Chris
Like I said, 37 Industries. This is the toughest to break into and make a good return of all the industries I’ve been in. But when we look at the reward, it’s pretty rewarding. And I get to live in my imagination, which is a lot of fun. These characters are…
Kat
You get to explore some really dark things without having to be dark.
Chris
Yeah. That’s another thing people ask, like, oh, are you like your character, Andrew? I’m like, no, we’re nothing in like.
Kat
I don’t want to gamble away my life.
Chris
What are you talking about? No, actually, but real quick story. So my friends were playing cards. We’re like nine or ten years old. So we go out, play card, and I showed up late, and we get done playing, and I was just having fun. They’re like, okay, Chris, you owe, like, $3. And so I’m like, what? We were playing for real money. You didn’t tell me. I was so mad. And I remember leaving, like, having to go get my money. I’m never going to gamble ever again. This is the stupidest day ever.
Kat
Yeah, it’s great. We get to walk in the shoes of someone we’re curious about, but we don’t really want to be. We don’t want to risk that, but we want to see what it would be like if somebody would risk it. I think it’s great.
Chris
Andrew’s favorite drink is scotch. And until after I finished the book, someone said, don’t you think you should? And I said, do you drink it? I’m like, no, I’ve never had it in my life. Why don’t you go try it? I’m like, okay. And now I like it. There’s so many things I had to learn how to play poker because I didn’t know, like, Texas Hold them, I learned for the book. So luckily, my editor was a poker player, so he helped me with some of the terminology. And honestly, I never play video games, but I downloaded a game on my phone, and it really helped me understand positioning when to fold, when not, bluffing. It really helped me understand the game by playing the video game. So I played that. I watched on masterclass, Daniel Negreanu, who’s a professional one, and how he reads people. And that’s what Andrew gets off on. He doesn’t care so much about the money. He’s a psychologist, and he wants to use all of his psychology to read someone and master their mind and own them. And that’s where he gets his thrill from, that he can predict to the point when they’re going to fold and what cards they have. Yeah. And that’s what he gets off on, and that’s why he gets that thrill. So, yeah, I can go to these dark places, these people that I see, and they’ve had horrific but doesn’t mean I would ever do any of this.
Kat
Exactly. Well, as we close out, how can people find you and your next if you do any readings or anything? And where can they find the book?
Chris
Yes. So you can go to my website, it’s ChrisKJones.com, and you can actually, for your readers, if you sign up for the newsletter, you can get the first seven chapters free. So happy to do that. If any of your listeners have any direct questions, they can email me at headcase@chriskjones.com and I’d be more than happy to answer any questions. My social media is headcase_novel on Twitter, Instagram. LinkedIn is Christopher K. Jones, and Facebook is Chris K. Jones author.
Kat
Awesome. We’ll have all those links in the show notes for you guys, seven chapters free is very generous. So I think everyone should go over there and check out this new book.
Chris
If you don’t like it after seven chapters, then don’t buy the book.
Kat
That’s true. I mean, I like that attitude too. We don’t really want to gather readers who aren’t going to really read the book, right? So we need something.