Q&A

Here is the full text of an interview with bestselling Kindle author Jim Bruno at his blog, Diplo Denizen:


Jim: I am fortunate to have Darrell Delamaide sit for an interview. Darrell is a literary renaissance man: a veteran financial news reporter, author of two non-fiction books and two novels. The latter, Gold and The Grand Mirage, have been Kindle bestsellers. He's currently working on two more novels. Darrell's writing style is crisp, vivid and engaging. If you like historical and financial thrillers, give him a shot. 

Darrell, you’ve been a financial news reporter for many years. What made you decide to try out fiction? Has making the transition been difficult? Would you give up your day job, if you could?

Darrell:  Jim, actually it was the other way around. I was a big reader as a kid -- comics, library books, science fiction, the works -- and I started writing my first "novel" at age 9. I eventually went into journalism because it is writing and storytelling, and I thought I could easily combine it with writing novels. The specialization in financial journalism was dictated by my timing coming out of graduate school. The economy was in recession and editors were only hiring journalists who could explain the economy. Any full-time job, however, makes it difficult to write books and when I finally got an agent she wanted to sell nonfiction books first. So my first book, Debt Shock, came out in 1984 and my first novel,Gold, came out in 1989. I published a second nonfiction book, The New Superregions of Europe, in 1994, but by the time I got back to writing fiction again, it had become much more difficult to get published and I ended up self-publishing The Grand Mirage last year. I would prefer to focus exclusively on writing fiction, and would definitely give up my day job if that ever become financially possible. 

Jim:  You have two novels out, both of which have been Kindle bestsellers. One – Gold - is a financial thriller. The other – The Grand Mirage – historical fiction. In just what genre do you feel most comfortable writing? Aren’t you afraid of being a literary schizoid? Have you thought of writing in one genre under a pen name as many other writers do?

Darrell:  Conventional wisdom says writers should establish a franchise -- a reliable, predictable and repetitious formula for their fiction so that loyal readers know what they're getting. There is some feeling that it is particularly important for indie writers who need to build their own audience. So there is some risk in blurring the "brand" image. I think the most important thing, though, is to get titles out there and provide some good reading for people. I think readers can accept a writer having two different genres, but that is probably the limit. I have some ideas about co-writing a series of police procedurals with my brother, a retired police officer, and we would do that under a pen name. As to comfort level -- I'm not sure I would be comfortable just churning out book after book with the same set of characters and plots that eventually blur together. It may take longer to build an audience working in different genres but it might ultimately be more satisfying for everyone.

Jim:  Gold lays out a chilling plot involving near global financial collapse due to the chicanery of irresponsible bankers and politicians. It is so relevant to today’s events yet you wrote it almost a quarter century ago. Are you writing about perennial flaws in capitalism, i.e., history repeating itself, or are you a modern day Nostradamus?

Darrell:  Capitalism does need some government intervention to smooth out the boom-and-bust cycle inherent in the markets' self-regulating system, especially in our modern global financial system where the outsize profits of the boom cycle go to bankers and their shareholders and the losses of the bust cycle are borne by society. The reason I could describe this environment decades ago in ways that are relevant today is that the problem was never fixed. In the debt crisis of the 1980s, banks were bailed out and citizens in developing countries bore the privations of deflation imposed by international monetary authorities. The same thing is happening now in the wake of the new financial crisis, with the difference that it is many of our own citizens who bear the consequences of excessive and reckless lending by the banks. It is worse this time around, because the banks invented new forms of financial chicanery to amplify the reward and the risk at ultimately little cost to themselves but much greater damage to other people. Again, it has not been fixed. So I fear that, sadly, Gold will be relevant again, and we won't have to wait a quarter century this time.

Jim:  You’ve published both traditionally and independently. How would you describe your experiences, and what advice would you give to authors who are just starting out?

Darrell:  I published traditionally when that was the only viable option and when it was not so difficult because there were many more publishers, many more agents and publishing was not so rigorously oriented to profit. The industry has evolved and technology has opened up great new possibilities for book authors as it has for so many other forms of expression. New writers should feel free to try and make it via the commercial route -- find an agent, hope he or she finds a publisher, cross your fingers that the publisher will make some minimal effort to distribute the book, etc. But I would caution against wasting too much time in that effort. The means of distribution and the chances of success for a new author will soon be very nearly the same whether self-published or published by a mainstream house.

Jim:  Regarding critics, Hemingway said, “I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.” How do you deal with bad reviews?

Darrell:  Is there such a thing? In the old days, any exposure for a book was good. My first book got a favorable, full-page review in the New York Times Book Review, while a prominent Times columnist, Leonard Silk, panned it in the widely syndicated review for the daily paper because he thought I was unfair to the banks. He even brought it up in an interview with the then-CEO of Citibank, Walter Wriston, mentioning me by name. You can't buy publicity like that. Even now, I think those scurrilous one-star reviews some mischief-makers put on Amazon sometimes make a potential buyer take a second look. One of the liberating things about the explosion in communication from blogs and social networking is that people are much more aware that any reviewer's opinion is really just one person's view and ultimately it may be worth 3.99 or 4.99 to find out for yourself.

Jim:  In your next life (as a writer), would you do things differently and, if so, how?

Darrell:  I would focus more on writing books earlier in my career and not let my job or other things distract me so much. 

Jim:  What’s your next one going to be about? When will we see it?

Darrell:  I'm working on two books right now. I'm well into writing a new financial thriller -- this time the hero is a Washington-based blogger -- while researching and writing the sequel to The Grand Mirage. The financial thriller is likely to be finished first, I hope by the fall. The new historical thriller, tentatively titled Black Sands, could be out by the end of the year, with any luck. But authors missing deadlines -- even self-imposed ones -- may be the one thing about publishing that never changes. 

Jim: Thanks, Darrell. And good luck with your upcoming books.

Here is the full text of an interview with Norm Goldman at Bookpleasures:

Norm: Could you tell us something about yourself and how you became interested in writing as a career?

Darrell: I started writing my first novel at age 9 and went into journalism as a career so that I could work as a writer. I read continuously from an early age, everything from comic books to science fiction to adventure. I enjoy storytelling and love language, and relish the opportunity to employ both in crafting fictional and nonfiction narratives.

Norm: What was your creative process like when creating your most recent novel, The Grand Mirage?

Darrell: I first came across the intriguing story of the Baghdad Railway in a history of Deutsche Bank, which I covered as journalist. It seemed to be a fabulous adventure in an exotic world. I found that I had assembled whole bookshelves of works about the history of the Middle East and wanted to recreate a world that has vanished in history but lurks in our subconscious. Then it became a challenge to scour contemporary journals and letters for all the telling details of this world, while the amazing resources of the Internet produced numerous images to help visualize it. 

Norm: Why have you been drawn to historical fiction? As a follow up, are there aesthetic advantages and disadvantages peculiar to historical fiction? Does it have a form?

Darrell: I've always been drawn to history and historical fiction. I think historical imagination helps us immensely to understand not only the events that created our modern world but the human condition itself. The best historical fiction dramatizes what is universal about our motives and emotions, while transporting us to faraway times and places. It also enables us to strip away some of the distractions of the modern world and appreciate what is truly valuable in life.  

Norm: What do you believe is required for a character to be believable and how did you create Richard Leighton, 9th Baron Leighton in The Grand Mirage?

Darrell: Making up a British lord is a particular challenge because everyone of them has been painstakingly recorded and you find that many of the good names have been taken. I wanted the hero to be an aristocrat so that he would have the intellectual and financial resources to be a true gentleman adventurer and able to play his role as an unofficial spy for the government. After that, like all characters, he had to be someone the reader cares for. It's important to delve into his emotions, explore his backstory, show his thinking. At the same time, in an historical novel like this one, you want to avoid anachronism. So, for instance, Leighton does not condemn British imperialism -- he is part of it -- though his love of the Orient leads him to have some doubts.

Norm: Did you know the end of The Grand Mirage at the beginning?

Darrell: What I have found both with this book and my earlier thriller, Gold, is that you start out with a vague idea of the arc of the plot, put your characters to work and see just where they take you. So while I knew generally where things would end up, I didn't anticipate all the twists and turns until they actually developed in the writing. This is one of the wonderful things about creating a work of fiction. 

Norm: What is you most favorite part of The Grand Mirage?

Darrell: I love Constantinople (today's Istanbul) and wanted to situate much of the action there, but I think the adventure, the drama, and the revelation of an exotic world I was striving for in The Grand Mirage come across most clearly in the final stages of Leighton's trek to Baghdad and his experiences there and on the Tigris River.

Norm: Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?

Darrell: From my work as a journalist. I have written two nonfiction books, one a chronicle of the Third World debt crisis and the other a new paradigm for post-Communist Europe, and both of those came from my reporting as a financial journalist who spent two decades in Europe. My financial thriller, Gold, is a fictional dramatization of the debt crisis book. As I explained earlier, I even came across the saga of the Baghdad Railway in the course of my reporting. I will be writing a sequel to The Grand Mirage, but I'm also working on a political thriller set in contemporary Europe based in part on my experiences as a foreign correspondent in Germany.

Norm: Do you believe you have already found “your voice” or is that something one is always searching for?

Darrell: I'm not sure I'm looking for "a" voice. I'm happy with the voice in both my novels, but I don't think it is the same. There may be some common sensibilities, but the voice of a contemporary financial thriller -- the style, the language, the pace -- is different from that in an historical thriller like The Grand Mirage. At some point, I may want to write a police procedural that would have yet again another style and voice. 

Norm: What has been the best part about being published?

Darrell: The very best thing, what motivates every writer, I think, is that the book is available to readers and will bring them some enjoyment. My first three books were published by mainstream publishing houses, Doubleday and Dutton, and it was frustrating in today's difficult market for fiction not to find a publisher for The Grand Mirage. Fortunately, the miracle of digital publishing now offers authors an alternative route to reaching readers. I think this is a good book that a lot of people will enjoy reading, and now they have the chance to do so.

Norm: In fiction as well as in non-fiction, writers very often take liberties with their material to tell a good story or make a point. But how much is too much?

Darrell: Who knows at this point? Part of the revolution of digital publishing is that it opens the floodgates for a whole stream of alternative histories, paranormal fantasies, and total flights of fancy. Personally, I prefer historical fiction anchored in fact and this is the type of book I have written. The young Winston Churchill, for example, appears in The Grand Mirage and shows up in Constantinople in the course of yacht vacation in the Mediterranean. He actually did take that cruise at that precise moment in time, though of course he didn't really meet my fictional character. The portrayal of his attitudes and his thoughts about the Middle East are drawn from historical accounts. Virtually all of the historical details in the novel, in fact, are drawn from historians or contemporary accounts.

Norm: Do you have any suggestions to help our readers become a better writers? If so, what are they?

Darrell: I think it's important to pay attention to the role of language in writing. Plot, characterization, often research are all important, but the writer should revel in the language itself, play with it, use it as a vital part of the overall package. One of my favorite writers at the moment, Simon Mawer, says a writer should be like a sculptor working in the marble of language, shaping it to portray the reality we see.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and your books?

Darrell: My independent publishing imprint is Barnaby Woods Books -- Barnaby Woods is the DC neighborhood I live in -- and the website with information about me and my writing is www.barnabywoodsbooks.com. 

Norm: Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Darrell: Norm, I would like to add that I think you are performing an invaluable service with Bookpleasures and your other reviewing activities. The challenge for readers in this new age of digital publishing is to navigate the flood of good, bad and indifferent reading that is now available. As the old filters of agents, publishers and bookstores crumble, there is an urgent need for new filters to help readers locate the books they want to read. We need a whole array of such filters and I think your pioneering work shows how helpful these can be.

Here is the full text of an interview with David Wisehart on his Kindle Author blog:

Darrell Delamaide, author of The Grand Mirage, discusses his book, his journey as a writer, and self-publishing on Kindle.

DAVID WISEHART: What can you tell us about The Grand Mirage?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: The first time I encountered the Baghdad Railway, oddly enough, was in a history of Deutsche Bank, the big German bank I covered as a financial journalist. The bank was instrumental in getting it built because the Kaiser wanted a direct land link between Berlin and the Persian Gulf. Britain opposed it because they feared war was on the way and didn’t want India to be vulnerable. What a story, I thought, full of adventure and intrigue. It’s the story I set out to tell in The Grand Mirage. I also thought it would be a great way to conjure up an exotic Middle East that has vanished in history and yet forms part of our Western imagination, from Scherezade to Lawrence of Arabia.

DAVID WISEHART: How do you develop and differentiate your characters?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: I found in writing this novel, as in my earlier financial thriller, Gold, that the characters pretty much develop themselves. They walk onto the stage and take charge, coming up with quirks and qualities I had no idea were there. It’s important that readers care about your characters, so you have to care about them. And I like for my main characters to have a sense of humor. I think every novel needs to have some wit.

DAVID WISEHART: Who do you imagine is your ideal reader?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: My ideal reader is anyone who will enjoy this book. It may be older readers who thrilled to the first Indiana Jones movie – which incredibly came out 30 years ago. But it may be younger readers who read Outside magazine and who would love the adventure of taking a caravan from Constantinople to Baghdad in 1910. One woman reader told me she liked the heroine, an Armenian poet, so much, she would like to see a sequel devoted to her. I like to think of my book as the thinking man’s or woman’s thriller – literary, intelligent, and vastly entertaining.

DAVID WISEHART: What was your journey as a writer?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: I started writing my first novel at age 10 and curiously enough it involved being carried away by a tornado – I’m from Kansas – and transported not to Oz but to a Lost World type of place with hungry carnivores. My first published book was nonfiction because my agent thought that was easier to sell than fiction. It got a full-page review in the New York Times Book Review and I though I was set. Robert Ludlum’s first editor, Dick Marek, then bought my financial thriller on the basis of the first five chapters. But times change and the publishing industry has had its ups and downs. I have a great agent who was enthusiastic about selling The Grand Mirage, but publishers seem to be scared of their own shadows these days and didn’t bite. So I decided to take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital publishing.

DAVID WISEHART: What is your writing process?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: I love writing and storytelling. Even my financial journalism is a narrative. I’ve been reading Simon Mawer lately (The Glass Room, The Gospel of Judas) and he says a writer must work with words like a sculptor. He does that exceptionally well and it’s what I try to do.  I’ve been writing professionally for decades and I write very fast. I’ve done a lot of editing, so I self-edit as I go along, and I go back and edit some more. I also had a great independent editor, Jerry Gross, work on this book and he was terrific in showing me that less is more. I was blocked too long by the difficulty in finding a publisher, and now that digital publishing offers a direct link to readers, I feel like I want to churn out several more books.

DAVID WISEHART: What authors most inspire you?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: I gravitated more or less naturally to the thriller genre, so in general I find a lot of inspiration there. John Le Carré is the master, though I find his characters bleak. British writers seem to have a better feel for the deep Anglo-Saxon roots of the English language. Rennie Airth (River of Darkness) and Robert Goddard (Into the Blue), who are popular in Britain but not too well known here, are particularly good in that regard. Alan Furst (Kingdom of Shadows), though an American, has lived abroad and had his early success in Britain as well. Again, I find his characters a little hard to warm up to, but he is a wizard at creating atmosphere. Among American writers, Joseph Kanon (The Good German) has also written some very fine historical thrillers.

DAVID WISEHART: What one book, written by someone else, do you wish you'd written yourself?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: I think for the sheer virtuosity of imagination and language, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is an astonishing work. I like The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as well, but the earlier book is a real masterpiece.

DAVID WISEHART: How have you marketed and promoted your work?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: I think e-books have changed the whole paradigm of how an author can connect with readers. Even just a few years ago, when print on demand first opened the floodgates of self-publishing, writers would travel around from bookstore to bookstore with a boxful of their books in the trunk, signing and selling their works. Now the world is one big bookstore at our fingertips. So social networking is the main form of marketing. But as John Locke, the phenomenally successful Kindle author says, it has to be about networking, not selling. You connect to readers not by telling them to buy your book but by showing something of yourself that is helpful to them. So I’m blogging and tweeting and tweeting my blogs and expanding my networks and joining forums. And the great thing is, this is all writing, too, and you’re connecting with real people. It’s a bonus if they pick up your book and read it and enjoy it.

DAVID WISEHART: Why publish on Kindle?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: Why not, you could say. It’s so easy. There’s no reason for any writer to hesitate. Whatever else may come, your book is out there, it costs less than a cappuccino and readers can indulge their most esoteric tastes in finding books that suit them to a T.

DAVID WISEHART: What advice would you give to a first-time author thinking of self-publishing on Kindle?

DARRELL DELAMAIDE: Don’t wait. Don’t wait to pile up rejection slips from mainstream publishers. I think many of their acquisitions in the future will be from the flood of self-published books anyway. If you have a short novel or a long novel, or a novella, or a small portfolio of poems – there’s no minimum or maximum size to make this commercially viable. It doesn’t have to be commercially viable. It just has to be something you want to say and that you think some people out there are going to want to read.