Author Stephen Prosapio Talks about What It Takes to Succeed as a Writer in 2011

Hard work and dedication have always been necessary. But it’s harnessing the new tools of publishing and marketing that are enabling authors like Stephen Prosapio to find their audience.

In less than fourteen months Stephen has built a Facebook fan club of more than 3,300 members, successfully self-published his first novel as a Kindle ebook and recently signed a publishing deal for his second book. His order of accomplishments may seem reversed by traditional standards until you realize that in today’s environment building an author’s brand is nearly as important as creating his art.

Speaking of art, executive-recruiter-by-day Prosapio never had much support for his writing: “I guess I never realized that I could make a living as a writer and felt I should do something much more “important” for the world.”

Years later Stephen is now “creating worlds” for us to experience. His first novel, Dream War competed against 2,676 other novels to win a Top Five Finalist award in Gather.com’s 2007 First Chapters contest. His second novel Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum is scheduled for publication June 2011.

He talks about his books, his marketing and his journey with us today.

What advice do you have for someone who has written a book and is thinking about self-publishing it as an ebook?

The single most important piece of advice I have is to make sure that your material is READY for publication. Being “ready” does not mean you’ve worked on it a long time—that’s a given. “Ready” isn’t you thinking it’s ready, or your wife/mom/boyfriend saying it’s good.

It means your writer’s group should be at a loss of words as to how great it is. Beta readers (as distant and objective as you can get) should rave about it. Only then should you put it out to the world. Otherwise you’ll be doing more harm than good.

Once it’s really really “Ready,” then get it out there. And then while you’re worrying about sales volumes and marketing efforts etc, remember that people are reading your work. And that’s the most important thing.

What technical and marketing resources helped you self-publish your first book?

Technical resources? You!
Marketing resources? Kindleboards, JA Konrath’s blog:  “A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing”, and Steve Weber’s “Plug Your Book!”

What online “communities” do you frequent? How did you find them?

It seems that online communities often shift and change in popularity. First there was Compuserve, then AOL, then MySpace. I originally got noticed during a contest on a social website called gather.com. Nowadays Facebook and Twitter are in vogue. Who knows who it will be in 5 years? I think a writer’s challenge is to spread their time across a few of these sites, blog regularly AND not let it affect their writing.

Here are a few of the communities I currently belong to:
www.kindleboards.com
www.gather.com
www.twitter.com
www.facebook.com
www.mobileread.com

And lastly, JA Konrath’s blog has become something of a forum for writers: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

How do you use Facebook to promote your book?

In January of 2010, I started a Facebook Group for the Xavier Paranormal Investigators, the fictional ghost hunting group in my upcoming novel Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum. I began friending and inviting people who commented on the real TV ghost hunting shows to join my group. I was shocked that it quickly became the fastest-growing (and most fun) group for those into the paranormal.
By the end of that March, just weeks after beginning to promote the group, nearly 1,000 members had joined. Many helped not only spread the word about the group, but shared their experiences and contributed daily to the group’s activities. A community was born.

Today the group boasts 3,300 members. It holds major monthly discussions and several minor ones. Members help other members cope with and experience paranormal activity. The group plays fun trivia games and writes group paranormal stories. Several pictures of the paranormal have been shared. That all this has sprung from a fictional paranormal group of a yet-unpublished book!

Additionally I have a personal page and a fan page.
http://www.facebook.com/stephenprosapio

How much time do you spend writing vs. marketing?

In short:  not nearly enough vs. far too much! I figure if JA Konrath can write a book in one month and spend the other 11 promoting, I should do about 50/50 right now. It’s hard to quantify really. Both activities encompass so much more than just the time spend actually “doing” them. Both require intense thinking and passive thought.

You are using a publisher for your second book. Why?

It’s funny that a year ago this question would likely have been asked much differently or not at all. Self publishing/Indie publishing has made such amazing advances in the past year that the question now seems to be why traditionally publish when you can self publish?

Traditional publishing even with a small publishing house affords many benefits different than Indie publishing. I still feel it provides legitimacy to some extent. It is easier to get in stores and there are fewer up-front costs to the author.

Now that you have created some imaginary worlds, what sort of plans do you have to expand on that? 

World building is vital to the types of stories I write. It might look quite like our own, but it’s just a shade off. It’s important to note what that “underworld” so to speak, looks and feels like. I use a lot of history in my stories, so much of the time I’m either writing the history of the story backwards, or I’m reaching far back and writing the history at the same time I write the “real time” portions.

It’s ironic that earlier tonight I met with a media consultant about producing a Book Trailer for Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum tonight. We’re coming up with a short cliffhanger video to generate some interest in my novel. The creative process for something like that or for movies is similar but vastly different. I do write scripts but they’re typically nothing like my novels.

As for expanding the worlds created in my novels to movies etc, that’s the job of my agent to look for or field offers for stuff like that. Unfortunately Hollywood typically is only interested in stuff that’s already proven and a “Big Deal”. If one of my books gets to that point, then I’ll have something to work on.

Thanks so much for having me here today!!!