Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jack King. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jack, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?
I’m 71 (about to turn 72). While I wrote a ton of advertising and marketing copy during my lengthy business career, I only started writing as an author in 2007. It took four years to get my first book published with a traditional royalty publisher. I’ve gone through one literary agency and three royalty publishers, in total. My new BLOOD Crime Thriller series is with a small traditional publisher and my three earlier books are Indie published through IngramSpark.
I had a 40+ years career in marketing and sales, including working at advertising agencies, marketing firms, followed by heading up marketing (then sales) on the corporate side. Always had an itch to write, though. If I had started writing in my 30’s (in the 1980s) instead of waiting until I was late 50’s, long before the Internet, POD, Amazon, everyone and their dog trying to publish, things might have been radically different and better! I’ve no doubt that I would have eventually landed with a Big 5 publishing company and reached near best seller or true best seller success, given the quality of novels I’m now writing.
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
Although I’m sure I have the skillset to be a successful ghost writer if I wanted, currently I’m only working on my own books.
My latest series is a noir type murder mystery/suspense/thriller genre. With gritty villains, language, plotlines. Short punchy sentences. Short paragraphs. Short chapters, each one written like a fast=paced short story, inviting the reader to quickly turn the page to see what happens next! Hard-boiled and high suspense!
My writing style is that of early James Patterson, but my plot development is closer to that of Agatha Christie, with a multiplicity of probable suspects in each book that the reader has to carefully follow the clues to try to successfully solve the case and identify the serial killer.
BEYOND BLOOD (A Detective Cliff Husto Thriller Book 1) … AGAINST BLOOD (A Detective Cliff Husto Thriller Book 2) … FALSE BLOOD (A Detective Cliff Husto Thriller Book 3). The 4th Book in the series (VILE BLOOD) is at the publishers and hopefully will be released late summer.
Right now, each book is available as an e-book on Amazon for just $2.99 each. The publisher is considering Audiobooks and Print Books in the near future, with distribution at that time to bookstores both independent and major chains.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Without a literary agent, it took me 4 years to get a traditional publisher for my first books in 2011. That publisher sadly went bankrupt in late 2012, unable to cope with the rapid changes in in the industry.
That left me scrabbling to find a literary agent this time. They successfully showcased my works to a larger publisher. Charles River Press and obtained a contract for me in 2014. CRP revised and republished my first 2 books. But unfortunately, we had a deal-breaking difference in creative direction with my third book. They wanted me to arbitrarily cut the book length by 1/3 to help reduce printing costs of the paperbacks. I refused, as that would have destroyed the integrity and character of both the writing style and story development.
I subsequently took back rights to my 3 books in late 2015 and republished them as an Indie author using IngramSpark during the following year.
In 2018, I began writing on the first book in my BLOOD Crime Thriller series. I finished it in early 2019, pitched it to my current publisher (Postmodern Publishing), got a contract, and it was released in fall 2019.
The moral of the story is if you wish to be published with quality; you must stay true to your creative vision, you must persevere no matter what the odds, and you must believe in yourself!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Two goals, intertwined.
One, write stories that give readers and fans of Crime Thrillers maximum enjoyment. Two, continue expanding my series until I reach aggregate revenues to make a comfortable living and more.
Given the influx of millions of new books and tens of thousands of would be “authors” in this age of POD, e-books, and self-publishing, it’s harder than ever to break through the noise and junk level into bestselling categories. Consider this. When Hemingway published his first novel, perhaps only 10,000 – 12,000 new titles were printed that year in the U.S. Today, in 2022, there will be over a million new titles, the vast majority self-published or POD. The slush piles of both literary agents and larger publishing companies are undulated with thousands of new manuscripts each month.
Creating a loyal fan base and growing sales is a process of adding more books over time to a well-received, well reviewed series. For most authors, profitability usually comes after the 5th or 6th book, and livable sales after the 8th or 9th book.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09QZWL8FY
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jolenking/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorjackking
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-olen-king-38579b10/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/authorjackking
- Other: www.jack-king.com (my old website listing my earlier 3 books)
Image Credits
I own the rights to my books.