We were lucky to catch up with Ben Rose recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ben, appreciate you joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
I have ridden freight trains and Amtrak and walked roads across this country to find stories worth telling. I live with HFASD, GAD, and CPTSD, and instead of keeping that locked away I put it directly into my characters and let readers feel what it actually costs to be an outsider in America.
I set a punk rock coming-of-age story in 1993 and in it tackled white supremacy, gun violence, class divide, and teen sexuality without flinching. A reviewer called it the best YA novel of 2024.
Another reviewer read Everybody But Us and The Long Game back to back in an all-night session and compared me to the Beat generation writers.
That kind of reader response is not something I expected once, not to say anything of multiple times.
Bury Me Upside Down sat in the Top 100 for YA Social Issues for six months. I never expected that.
The problem is that I have built something visceral…a voice that is angry and tender at the same time. A body of work that spans homeless queer teenagers in New York, 90s punk rock suburbia, and the ragged underside of American life that most traditional YA fiction is too timid to explore directly.
But my books are not talking to each other. Readers who discover Bury Me Upside Down through the YA Social Issues chart have no clear path to Everybody But Us.
The readers who would be most evangelical about my work; the 90s nostalgia crowd, the punk and alternative music communities, the
addiction recovery groups, the disenfranchised Millennials and Alphas, the neurodivergent reader spaces where my lived experience as someone with HFASD and CPTSD could make me not just an author but a voice that people actually need, these respective groupings have no idea that I exist.
I am uncertain how to fix this issue. One absolute non-starter is the multiple scam messages I receive in my email. Paying any amount of money to unknown and untested “promoters” or “influencers” is out of the question.
If I knew of a way, I’d try connecting the neurodiverse and the neurotypical reader communities, thus positioning my works to connect my voice and my lived experience as an author
Ben, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I was born with comorbidities that went undiagnosed for almost 40 years. Writing was one of my less-dangerous escapes.
I have written characters and storylines that will engage YA readers who deal with addiction, mental illness, and general distaste for modern society.
In my own way, by bucking trends, and telling the literary gatekeepers where to shove it, I help open avenues for the marginalized readers.
I am most proud of the fact that many readers have changed their life trajectories after reading my works…or so they inform me.
There are reading communities amongst the ASD, I have heard, where the authenticity of works like mine are not just valued but searched for desperately. Characters like Vinnie, and Cyrus are the type of literary beings that neurodivergent readers find and never forget, because these characters think and feel the way the reader actually does rather than the way neurotypical fiction imagines outsiders must think and feel.
This is one of the main reasons I write my works. I want the readers to feel seen and cared about.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The connection between author and reader is one of the most powerful discovery engines in YA, and I endeavor to tap it.
Cross-book audience migration to build a real pipeline between my existing books, so that every reader who finds one becomes a reader of all of them, is my primary goal.
My four novels share a DNA: the grit, the social conscience, the rawness, the wit. I endeavor to have readers find the common threads and weave themselves into the tapestry.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
It has been a difficult journey. There are people who will act interested and start an exchange. Three days and fifty messages later they come at the author with a sales pitch. The pitch is pure rayon and a yard wide, if you dig the riff.
There are also people who will outright scam authors without a pretense of caring.
Separating these clowns and lowlifes from the legitimate supporters has been arduous.
Of late, these immoral swindlers have taken to reading AI summaries of an author’s works after which they commence sending emails.
My best advice is this: Money flows to the author not the other direction. If the person offering you a deal is a complete unknown, do not pay them one farthing.
The legitimate helpers will always be willing to accept a slice of the pie…if and when their services bring the returns promised.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://benrauthor.substack.com/p/the-beat-on-the-street-is
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benroseauthor/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100063950238834
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/me?trk=p_mwlite_feed-secondary_nav
- Other: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20375679.Ben_Rose
Image Credits
Ben Rose