We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cap Daniels. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cap below.

Cap, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

It’s magic, plain and simple. I’m not talking about sleight of hand or misdirection. Becoming a professional novelist is a function of hundreds of factors, but there’s that one little kernel that can’t be defined, identified, touched, or tasted: readers can feel it. And that’s the magic.

All writers write; otherwise, they’d be former writers. But not all writers are created equal. Each of us has a level of skill, talent, and imagination that can never be identical to anyone else’s. Although we share a great many similarities with other writers, we’re all unique in our own bizarre way. The magic I’m talking about—that kernel—is the thing all commercially successful authors share. None of us knows what it is, how to capture it, or even if we have it until it jumps up and declares its presence in our life.

When that happens, it’s lightning in a bottle, and it’s the best feeling a writer will ever experience. Sometimes it comes in the form of gradually improving book sales over a period of time, until one day, we’re making more money each day than we used to make each month, and the reality of writing for a living starts to look possible. That’s just one way the magic happens, but mine was a little different.

When I wrote and published my first book in The Chase Fulton Novels, I believed I had a marketable story that was well written, professionally edited, and intriguing enough to keep readers turning the pages. I was right. It sold slowly, but it sold, and for the first time in my life, I was being paid to write. It was a meager payment, but a payment nonetheless. The day I released my second book in the series, a pair of wildly successful writers threw me off a cliff and right onto the springboard that would launch my career into orbit. These two angels who did the shoving did so in the form of recommending my work to their readers via email, and on Facebook with posts about me. I didn’t know they were conspiring behind my back, but they changed my life forever.

At that moment, I’d never been professionally happier, but by their recommendation, little did I know they had sentenced me to a life of perpetual labor in the writers’ gulag. I’m not complaining. I love my life sentence. When thousands of people bought both of my books on the same day, not only was I hooked, but I was willing to do whatever the throngs demanded to keep that feeling rushing through my veins. Those few thousand people told a few thousand friends, and they all bought my third book. And the cycle has continued four years later, where they’re buying my twenty-fourth book, and I’m assaulting the keyboard with my fingertips to quickly put book number twenty-five in their hands.

I found my magic in the form of a little boost by two wonderful writers I’d never met but who became dear friends and treasured parts of my life, but that’s still not exactly the magic I’m trying to describe. Yes, that kick start did wonders and changed my life forever, but it wasn’t enough to explain selling two million books in four years. There was an element of drive, determination, and willingness to put in the hours and write every day, but hundreds of thousands of writers have that same drive and work ethic who never sell more than a handful of books. What separates me from those writers? It’s that little kernel of magic no one can explain. There’s something about my stories that makes readers buy and devour them. My stories aren’t better than most. They’re probably not even average when compared to the work of other writers with my same commitment to production, but there’s an element that just works when readers open my books and refuse to close them until the final page. Whatever that little magic thing is, I’m deeply thankful for it, and I’ll never take it for granted.

I write a lot. Most days, I put three thousand words on paper. That’s important, but without the team I’ve built to turn my manuscripts into novels, it wouldn’t be possible to accomplish what I have in these four years. I have a magnificent editor who has the beautiful heart of a teacher and the cruel whip of a relentless taskmaster. She constantly pushes me to be better, and for that, I love having her in my life. In addition to my editor, I have the most supportive and encouraging spouse any writer could dream of having. She expects me to perform at a professional and ever-improving level, but she demonstrates that expectation through love, kindness, and understanding of the hours I spend with my fingers curled over the keyboard. Without her, none of this would have happened, and I’d still be writing stories just for me.

There’s a cast of support personnel who contribute to every book. They are critical links in the chain, as well, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention them. The cover designer who wraps my books in such beautiful and alluring packages is invaluable. She’s talented, efficient, and surprisingly inexpensive. The formatter who makes the interior of my novels consistently pleasant to the eye and easy to read is another professional who has earned a place in my heart. The brilliant voice actors who turn my written stories into live performances bring an element of art to my work that makes me proud and honored every time they bring my characters to life, and I treasure their friendship as well as their professionalism. The advertising team who highlight my books to audiences who’ve never heard of me, and the publicists who make me sound better than I’ll ever be, also earn a spot in the long list of appreciated elements in this process.

In closing, I hope I made it clear that I am deeply thankful and endlessly honored to have been given the incredible gift of being a professional novelist. This precious gift comes from many sources, but most of all, it comes from the hundreds of thousands of readers who pick up my books and climb aboard my boat for another journey through my imagination. For those readers, I do my best to make every story better than the last one, and I owe them a debt I’ll never be able to repay.

So, perhaps that kernel of magic is gratitude . . . Perhaps.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a lifelong dreamer and lover of life. I’ll never live to a three-digit age, but when I draw my last beath on this Earth, I will do so knowing I have lived every day to its fullest. I knew in high school that writing lay in my future, but I had no way to know just how much it would enrichen my life. An English teacher complimented me on a creative writing project everyone in the class seemed to detest, but I found fascinating. Her words of praise were the pusher’s first free sample that led me down the path of searching for that same emotional high I felt when that teacher drew a smiley face on my paper.

I’ve done a great many things in my life, and I’ve often pushed my own limits just to see how far I could go and still come back. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was always exciting. I’ve flown hundreds of airplanes, sailed dozens of boats, seen corners of the world most people on dream of seeing. I’ve laughed, loved, lost, learned, and most of all, I’ve lived. That is the foundation of the fiction I create. I write nautical and aeronautical action-adventure stories laced with a little espionage. I keep it clean by hiding private moments between characters behind closed doors and left to the readers’ imaginations. I don’t find it necessary to throw in gratuitous offensive language. A good story can be told without offending the audience, and that’s the philosophy under which I write.

At the time of this writing, I’ve published twenty-four full-length novels and two novellas. Eighteen of those books have been The Chase Fulton Novels about an American covert operative who travels the globe saving the world, one bad guy at a time. The cast of characters in the series have become like family to me, and I look forward to playing with my imaginary friends every day when I sit down at my keyboard. Four more of my books have been in a spin-off series entitled The Avenging Angel – Seven Deadly Sins series about a former Russian female assassin who is now working with the American Justice Department to clean up the presence of the Russian mafia inside the U.S. In addition to my series work, I have two stand-alone novels on the market with more to come.

I deeply treasure the trust and commitment my readers express through email, Facebook posts, and by financially supporting my work by buying my books. I live a comfortable life because of that financial support, but I live a blessed and honored life because of the hundreds of kind emails and posts that arrive every week. I take my responsibility to my audience incredibly seriously, and I strive every day to reward their support with better, stronger, deeper stories.

I’m a novelist because there are a thousand stories inside my head screaming to get out, but I’m a writer because helping people escape the reality of their world for a few hours at a time is one of the noblest of all art forms.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

What a wonderful question this is. Without a doubt, I’ve built a relationship with my readers by sincere and boundless gratitude for their support. I express that gratitude by answering every email anyone takes time to send me. There are weeks when that number tops two hundred emails, but time is valuable, and if someone takes the time to write to me, I owe that person some of my time as well. I love the relationships I’ve built with many of my readers, and I’ll always treasure the trust they express in my creativity by often buying my next book even before I’ve written it.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

I chose this question as a demonstration of the prerequisite of becoming a successful novelist. I can honestly say when I discovered this question, I didn’t possess an opinion of NFTs. I’d never given them the consideration they apparently deserve. I never even . . .

Okay, I’ll confess. Until I Googled NFT, I had no idea what they were, and to be honest, I’m not sure I understand them any better now that I’ve read their definition. My point is this. It’s okay to be ignorant, but it’s never okay to intentionally remain ignorant. We live in a world of information where the answer to almost any question is only a few keystrokes away. I’m not any smarter than the next guy. I’m just a curious soul wandering around in a world that fascinates me. That fascination turns into stories in my head, and those stories become novels in your hands. So, the thing I want you to take away from this answer is that you don’t have to be something special to become something special. Do what you love, and do it with reckless abandon. Anything less is dishonesty, and that simply will not do.

Contact Info: 

• Website: www.CapDaniels.com
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WriterCapDaniels
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/Cap-Daniels/e/B07D5JT5XV