Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jack Bowie. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Jack thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

Writing pundits always say “write what you know”, but no one knows enough to create truly immersive stories. I write technothrillers. Each of my books highlights some hot technology: Data encryption, hypersonic vehicles, AI, etc. All involve lots of research to get the details my readers expect. Today, much of this information is available on the web, or course, but there are always small, and sometimes not so small, details that you just can’t find. That’s where contacts come in. One of the most surprising, and satisfying, aspects of my personal writing journey has been the help I receive from complete strangers. A couple of examples: contacting the public affairs office of the German Federal Police to learn about their organization and the type of firearms they carry; speaking with the Tourist Bureau of Kodiak Island, Alaska, to learn about travel and lodging details for the Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska, a missile testing site; working with a researcher at the MIT Libraries to have access to a 1903 document during the COVID pandemic when the library was closed. But my craziest conversation was related to a story when my protagonist was being spirited out of the country on a Lockheed C-130 cargo plane CIA “black” flight. Now I’ve never even seen a C-130 except in pictures, but wanted to describe the experience of actually traveling in one. So I picked up the phone and called the Lockheed Martin Public Relations office in Marietta, Georgia, by the Robbins Air Reserve Base. I spoke with a representative who provided wonderful details on the interior accommodations (web seats attached to the inner walls), storage bins, flight details, and even insights on how black flights really work. We had multiple phone and email exchanges that enabled me to write a realistic, and hopefully exciting, scene. So my takeaway is how strangers will take a poor author under their wing and share information and experiences critical to the author’s success with no renumeration other than a citation in the “Thanks to” at the end of a book. It’s enough to give one confidence in humanity after all.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was born and raised outside of Cleveland, Ohio, then headed to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend MIT. After graduating, I held technical management positions in public and private sector organizations in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Connecticut. My principal field was clinical informatics, computer systems applied to the delivery of healthcare. During these years, I saw a lot of successes and failures, friendships and rivalries, and alliances and conflicts that are part of high tech.

A lifelong reader of classic science fiction and espionage thrillers, I began fiction writing as a break from my professional duties. The more I wrote, the more I realized the passion I had for for storytelling. After a lot of studying and practice, I finally began my Adam Braxton series which follows a tenacious cyber-security consultant into the opportunities and dangers of high-tech. That first book has now turned into ten novels and an active reader community. The writing journey has been personally very satisfying, highlighted by the positive feedback I have received from these readers.

My goal is to provide stories that entertain, of course, but also cause my readers the think about the positive, and sometimes negative, aspects of the technology that surrounds us all.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

By far, the best source is word of mouth. Readers who try out my books and tell their friends and family about me. I also do some advertising, principally on the Amazon platform, and this does draw in new readers, especially in non-US markets. I have significant reader communities in the UK and Australia. Repeat customers are, of course, crucial to an author. Having a series with a common cast of characters seems to help with this.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I rely heavily on my newsletter and email list for reader communication. The back of each of my books points to a free prequel novel that is available on my web site. From this download, I collect email addresses for my newsletter. While I do have a Facebook page, I find I get better responses, and am able to communicate better with my readers, from the newsletter.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jackbowie.com
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/jackbowieauthor
• Other: email: [email protected]

Image Credits

Jack Bowie