Episode 066 - From Indy to Traditional with Jason Kasper
February 16, 2021
Thriller author Jason Kasper discusses what drove his move from indy publishing to a small traditional publisher, the control he’s maintained over his two primary reader outreach mechanisms (email and a private Facebook group), and how he has maintained another indy author practice: rapid creation of content.
Jason Kasper served in the US Army as a Ranger and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq before attending West Point. Jason then served as an Airborne Infantry and Special Forces officer, deploying multiple times to Afghanistan and Africa. During his off-duty time he began running marathons and ultramarathons, skydiving, BASE jumping, and writing fiction. His last Army assignment was as a Green Beret team commander. Upon returning from his final deployment in 2016, Jason began his second career as an author with the publication of his debut novel, GREATEST ENEMY. Jason lives with his wife and daughter in North Carolina. A portion of all his sales benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
"The plot should be compelling enough. And narrative drive should be good enough that the equipment and the gear is more or less interchangeable." —Jason Kasper
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çMatty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Jason Kasper. Hey, Jason, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Jason: I'm doing great, Matty. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:08] Matty: It is my pleasure. So to give our listeners a little bit of background on you ...
Jason Kasper served in the US Army as a Ranger and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq before attending West Point. Jason then served as an Airborne Infantry and Special Forces officer, deploying multiple times to Afghanistan and Africa.
During his off-duty time he began running marathons and ultramarathons, skydiving, BASE jumping, and writing fiction. His last Army assignment was as a Green Beret team commander. Upon returning from his final deployment in 2016, Jason began his second career as an author with the publication of his debut novel, GREATEST ENEMY.
Jason lives with his wife and daughter in North Carolina. A portion of all his sales benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
[00:00:54] And we're going to be talking today about making the move from indy to traditional publishing. Before we dive into the details of that, Jason, describe how you've baked the experiences that I just described in your bio into your books.
[00:01:10] Jason: Initially it was pretty direct because my first series dealt with a lot of military thriller themes and story construction. So there was a lot of considerations like into the tactics, the layout of the gunfights and everything that applied pretty well from doing that kind of thing professionally in the Army and then writing about it.
[00:01:27] And I've done a separate heist thriller series as well. And even since then, experience in adrenaline sports and everything has played out in risk management, doing criminal activity. I feel like it's been a pretty good translation into fiction.
[00:01:43] Matty: You started out as indy, correct? Can you describe what led you from an indy author career to now being published through a more traditional publisher?
[00:01:55] Jason: Sure. Part of the decision to go indy in the first place was I didn't want anyone telling me what to do. I started with that prima donna artists' attitude of I'm going to write what I want to write, take it or leave it. And I couldn't stomach the thought of a submissions editor telling you what to change. And now knowing what I know about the industry, I don't think they would have taken my work anyway, and I still don't think they would. So I liked that creative freedom aspect of it, so I started out as an indy and then got a foothold there.
[00:02:21] The decision to go with a traditional publisher, one, it is a smaller press that gives me total creative latitude, which is the most important consideration for me professionally. And then, two, I think the indy scene got so complex with the advertising required to generate sales and even appear under a search for your own name, plus book title. Your search results are buried under a half dozen ads, most of which I was paying for just to show up under my own name. So that system became more and more complex and I was spending more and more time doing the advertising piece, which works for a lot of indies.
[00:02:58] I'm terrible at math. I'm not an Excel guru and any success I had in the indy side just came from other authors really helped me out and telling me how to manage it, what to change in the ads and everything. But eventually that system got so complex. And then my writing developed enough where I could increase my output to the point where spending half my working day tinkering around with ads and marketing just really started to detract from the amount of work I would be able to put out into the world. So that was the nail in the coffin for me. ...
[00:00:06] Jason: I'm doing great, Matty. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:08] Matty: It is my pleasure. So to give our listeners a little bit of background on you ...
Jason Kasper served in the US Army as a Ranger and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq before attending West Point. Jason then served as an Airborne Infantry and Special Forces officer, deploying multiple times to Afghanistan and Africa.
During his off-duty time he began running marathons and ultramarathons, skydiving, BASE jumping, and writing fiction. His last Army assignment was as a Green Beret team commander. Upon returning from his final deployment in 2016, Jason began his second career as an author with the publication of his debut novel, GREATEST ENEMY.
Jason lives with his wife and daughter in North Carolina. A portion of all his sales benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
[00:00:54] And we're going to be talking today about making the move from indy to traditional publishing. Before we dive into the details of that, Jason, describe how you've baked the experiences that I just described in your bio into your books.
[00:01:10] Jason: Initially it was pretty direct because my first series dealt with a lot of military thriller themes and story construction. So there was a lot of considerations like into the tactics, the layout of the gunfights and everything that applied pretty well from doing that kind of thing professionally in the Army and then writing about it.
[00:01:27] And I've done a separate heist thriller series as well. And even since then, experience in adrenaline sports and everything has played out in risk management, doing criminal activity. I feel like it's been a pretty good translation into fiction.
[00:01:43] Matty: You started out as indy, correct? Can you describe what led you from an indy author career to now being published through a more traditional publisher?
[00:01:55] Jason: Sure. Part of the decision to go indy in the first place was I didn't want anyone telling me what to do. I started with that prima donna artists' attitude of I'm going to write what I want to write, take it or leave it. And I couldn't stomach the thought of a submissions editor telling you what to change. And now knowing what I know about the industry, I don't think they would have taken my work anyway, and I still don't think they would. So I liked that creative freedom aspect of it, so I started out as an indy and then got a foothold there.
[00:02:21] The decision to go with a traditional publisher, one, it is a smaller press that gives me total creative latitude, which is the most important consideration for me professionally. And then, two, I think the indy scene got so complex with the advertising required to generate sales and even appear under a search for your own name, plus book title. Your search results are buried under a half dozen ads, most of which I was paying for just to show up under my own name. So that system became more and more complex and I was spending more and more time doing the advertising piece, which works for a lot of indies.
[00:02:58] I'm terrible at math. I'm not an Excel guru and any success I had in the indy side just came from other authors really helped me out and telling me how to manage it, what to change in the ads and everything. But eventually that system got so complex. And then my writing developed enough where I could increase my output to the point where spending half my working day tinkering around with ads and marketing just really started to detract from the amount of work I would be able to put out into the world. So that was the nail in the coffin for me. ...
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[00:03:25] Matty: You had said that your publisher, Severn River Publishing, is a smaller publishing house. Can you describe a little bit more what you saw as the difference between a publisher like Severn River and one of the big four or however many there are now? What was the difference there?
[00:03:42] Jason: I think the Big Five, now Big Four, since Penguin acquired Simon and Schuster, I have no contacts in that industry, I've never had an agent. I've never applied to them. Knowing what I know now, and even then, I didn't have a high degree of confidence that my submission wouldn't end up in a slush pile and then just not be found to be really fitting the demographic they were looking to serve.
[00:04:07] So I think if I wrote more along the lines of what existing authors are doing, where there are really tight comp author targets and I could pitch this would apply to the audience of XYZ, with a very clear delineation, it might've been easier. Like I said, I write whatever I want. I write the stories I want to read. And I think there's enough departures from the traditional thriller tropes and trends that it's not a direct translation. Severn River Publishing was an easy decision for me because I knew the founder, Andrew Watts, he was one of the indy authors who helped me out immeasurably.
[00:04:39] I reached out to him for help -- like, how do you sell books? -- when I realized you couldn't hawk a book or two out there and start getting traction while you kept working on your next novel. So he helped me a lot, told me take this course, here's how you learn ads, read this book, and then really mentored me through, look, you have to have this super complicated spreadsheet, track all your ROIs and everything and accommodate and account for Kindle Unlimited reads, which at the time there was no tracking data for, from Amazon. So he helped me out a ton. He later started that publishing company, Severn River Publishing.
[00:05:09] His initial staff was all military vets and military spouses, so I liked that aspect, and then I just had full faith and confidence. Andrew is, to my mind, a genius because he left the Navy, did four years at Proctor and Gamble, got the best marketing training that any company on earth offers.
[00:05:26] And I had seen when he told me like, look, change your covers, change your description to be XYZ, start running ads this way. And when I started making those changes, my sales went from nothing or from occasionally picking up new readers who happened to stumble across me to turning it into a sustainable and scaling income and making it a business.
[00:05:43] So when I hit the point where I was spending so much time trying to manage that that it was cutting into the number of books that'd be able to produce, I approached him and only him and said, you can take my entire back list. I'll sign all my future books with you. And it was a pretty easy decision for me because I knew him personally, professionally, and we've hung out quite a few times at author events. I didn't trust anyone else with my work. Not that there's not plenty of outstanding publishers who do a great job but seeing what he's done with that company just in the first couple of years, it's the right place for my work.
[00:06:14] Matty: when you were making the decision about going to Andrew and offering up your back list and your upcoming books, was there ever an interim point where you decided you wanted to stay indy, but you wanted to hire somebody to do all those things that you were saying were cutting into your time for writing, like social media and advertising?
[00:06:33] Jason: No, it was never really a feasible option for me. I know authors that have had success with that, that had great assistants. I don't know of any advertising services that have done a better job than an indy could do, at least not at a reasonable price point that would make it worthwhile financially. But the problem with me hiring someone is I have to train them and I was barely trained to do it myself. So it was never really an honest consideration for me. I wanted to go all or nothing.
[00:07:00] Matty: You said either in our conversations before this interview or I read somewhere that the two things that you did carry forward, that you maintained the same way in your current situation as when you were publishing indy, were your mailing list and social media. Talk a little bit about why you decided to do that and how that's working for you.
[00:07:20] Jason: The main reason I wanted to keep my mailing list and social media and retain that all was because I do a lot of reader interaction. I answer every email. I have a Facebook reader group with really good engagement. That's how I communicate with the readers, by and large. My readers become the characters in my books. I use everybody's names and it's a really kind of personal relationship that I couldn't outsource to anyone else. And I'd never really been comfortable with the idea of having an assistant answering emails for me. So I wanted to keep those two things.
[00:07:42] And I think the third big carry over that I do from the indy side is just rate of production. I know for the big four publishing houses it's common to have that one-year book production cycle, of which, regardless of how long it takes the author to write, there's a six-month to a year lead time and the promotional activities and then putting it through the marketing and distribution channels to stock airports and Walmart's and everything else. I know there's trad authors that do two books a year, but I think indies, from my experience, had been the ones to really be writing three or four books a year consistently for their entire career.
[00:08:19] And I picked up that pace of writing as a survival thing, for being in indy, it's all about streamlining your processes and getting your books at the market because you're not reaching as wide of an audience. So now that I'm with a publisher, I've just found myself speeding up. One, my process has gotten more streamlined with experience and then, two, I just have so much more time to dedicate to the work.
[00:08:40] Matty: Percentage wise, how are you dividing your time across writing activities and those remaining promotional and marketing activities that you kept?
[00:08:48] Jason: The remaining promotional stuff, it's maybe 5% of my time. It's not a big deal for me to pop in on my Facebook reader group few times a day and chat with people. I generally sit down once a week and process all the reader emails and just dedicate a block of time for that. And then there's also a little bit of time involved in the reader updates on my mailing list, but that's a once-a-month thing for me generally. So, yeah, best guess, may be 5%.
[00:09:13] Matty: How did your creative process change between your indy experience and having a publisher? For example, you're saying that the fact that Severn River's taking care of a lot of this other stuff is giving you more time to write. In addition to that extra time, did the process itself of writing or editing change for you?
[00:09:34] Jason: No, not too much. I started writing and I just established a process in terms of how I outline a book and take it from initial concept to finished product. I just want to have a process so I could just make adjustments as I went. and then every book, I tweak it a little bit. I shortened some parts and what used to take me two or three weeks to lay out all my note cards and the whole screenwriting process of building the act sequences and scenes to make up the story, I can sit down and in a few days or a week, have my note cards laid out to the point where I don't need to delve any more into the scenes. I don't need to nitpick anything. I can just tell that critical mass when I can just get started writing.
[00:10:14] The big difference in signing with a publisher is everything takes me less time now, but I still don't really type much faster. I'm still maybe a 3,000, 3,500 words a day kind of guy. But I can generate that a lot quicker and then be processing, and my editor gets back the last manuscript to me, it's a lot easier to pencil in time to get those edits done and back without really slowing pace on the book I'm working on.
[00:10:39] Matty: Do you ever get assignments from your editor about what they want the next book to be about or is that totally up to you?
[00:10:44] Jason: Totally up to me, fortunately. Not that I don't mind guidance or input, but I like to run my own ship creatively.
[00:10:53] Matty: The thing that strikes me, that's also unusual about your publisher relationship, is that it sounds like at least when it started out, it was largely staffed by fellow military people. And so before I realized that, what I was wondering is, was the fact of your not only writing military thrillers, which many people do, but having had that experience yourself, was that attractive to the publisher? I guess the question is still legitimate -- were they specifically looking for people who had that experience directly?
[00:11:26] Jason: No. They've since hired outside of the military community. They've just expanded to that point. I don't think military experience, one, from any publisher's perspective, is a prerequisite. There's plenty of guys who serve in the military and they can't write well. There's plenty of people who haven't served in the military. Look at Tom Clancy. He literally invented the bar and then set it for what a military thriller is. Never served a day, but he got the research down and was authentic enough and nobody's going to call about technical inconsistency.
[00:11:53] So I think what's attractive to my publisher, and probably any publisher looking to hire an indy, is what's your existing readership? How are your books launching? How are they selling? What's the read-through between books and the series? Yeah, the military experience helps me personally in the process of creating a book, but I don't think that's a major consideration for them.
[00:12:12] Matty: Do you see a difference in how they're marketing your books versus other authors that they're representing that don't have that background? For example, is your advertising targeting people with a military background?
[00:12:24] Jason: Some of it. For the military books, they'll tweak -- and it's not so military-specific as it is whatever's going on increased conversion, as any good advertiser will do. So case in point, they've also got a former detective, a retired cop who writes crime, thrillers named Brian Shea. Hugely successful. So his advertising copy might be, crime fiction written by a detective. Mine might be military thrillers or black ops thrillers by a former Green Beret. If somebody doesn't have that background, they just do good advertising copy. And I think that all comes down to just whatever increases conversion. And if that detective experience or military experience doesn't convert well, they'll try another set of copy and keep running it until they optimize it.
[00:13:07] Matty: You had mentioned the fact that you have a Facebook reader group. Can you describe a little bit about how you interact with that group? How it got set up? What benefits you're seeing from that?
[00:13:18] Jason: Sure. I'm not a big social media guy at all. And Andrew Watts helped me out. A couple of years ago, Facebook made that change where basically if you posted under a personal profile or even a professional page, it wasn't going to get any exposure. Facebook started redirecting everything towards groups that you subscribed to.
[00:13:36] So when that change started happening, I think a couple of years ago now, a lot of authors started going to having their own reader group and setting that up. I remember that was big talk in the indy community at the time. And Andrew just texted me, Hey, you need to start a reader group. And I said okay.
[00:13:51] And I literally clicked through the process to do it. And I was like, should it be private or public, or do a private group, take applications to screen the bots and the spammers. So I just started it and initially it was just book updates and some giveaways and stuff and organically evolved with the type of people were subscribing and what people responded to.
[00:14:08] And now there is no strategy. I don't plan any posts ahead of time. Half the time I'm drunk or here's a picture I took of my cat or we're talking about bourbon. It's just a wide variety of people on there and post stream of conscious of whatever comes to mind, whatever I think might be funny or entertaining. Generally positive stuff. I just do no book spoilers, no politics, so it's just very inclusive. And other readers post life achievements or stuff about their kids. And it's just this collective conversation. It's interesting because some of the readers are now friends with each other and correspond with each other. Everybody knows each other's pets, kids, whatever.
And then there's also a good amount of updates to my books. And also when I have friends who write similar -- Andrew Watts, LT Ryan and Brian Shea -- I'll be like, Hey, here's a new release out. Because you can't produce books fast enough for the kind of readers who are going through the indy ranks. These aren't the people who are looking for a one book a year beach read, they're crushing, some of them, multiple books a week. So it was good to give some love to your fellow authors. And I've got all my author friends who write in the same genre, we all support each other. We all promote each other's releases internally with our own readership.
[00:15:14] So I constantly had readers coming to me like, Oh yeah, I'm glad LT Ryan told me about your books and I'm glad, CG Cooper mentioned you, and it just ends up being a really positive thing for everybody involved.
[00:15:25] Matty: Are they members of your reader group?
[00:15:27] Jason: Yes. Not necessarily active. We're all members of each other's reader groups and everything, but mostly it's if we tag each other in a new release or a reader tags them, they get the notification and come in and respond to it.
[00:15:39] The urban fantasy crowd is really sophisticated with their Facebook takeovers and cross promotional stuff. And I've occasionally done stuff like that, where they'll let you post in their group for something that would appeal to their readership. But the thriller crowd's not nearly that sophisticated. We're all just doing our thing, writing and helping each other out where we can.
[00:15:57] Matty: The reader group is really interesting. I have, of course, an author Facebook page and I'm always trying to get people to engage on that, asking questions or saying here's a picture of my dog, post a picture of your dog. Crickets. So I'm very interested in hearing the success you're having. How do you get the word out about the reader group?
[00:16:19] Jason: First off, I will commiserate with you. I get no traction on my Facebook author page. None. I set it up pretty much for Facebook ads initially, and now I'll just post a new release on it whenever it happens. And it's zero engagement, very few people. And that's part of Facebook structure. You post your professional page and, hey, you want to boost this post, dot dot dot. Otherwise nobody's going to see it. And in my case, nobody does. So for getting the word out about the group, I do a few things.
[00:16:45] One, on the Facebook page, I have a pinned post at the top. It says, join Jason Kasper’s reader group, connecting with readers, opportunities for giveaways, books, cameos, everything I do within that group. So if anybody arrives at my author page from a cold search, they will find it. In my back matter, all my social links, and even at my website, my Facebook link isn't to my author page, just to my Facebook reader group, because I don't care if anybody follows my page. You like it, you're not going to see anything I post there and I'm not paying for it.
[00:17:13] So I do the pinned post, and then in my email sequence, I have early on when somebody signs up for my mailing list on my website, which is also prominently displayed in all my books, I do a lot of CTA for the mailing list. And I do a freebie incentives as well. So in one of those early emails, there's a P.S.: Now that you're a reader, if you'd like to join my Facebook group, join 800 other fans for these opportunities, and it results in a steady trickle of people coming in.
[00:17:39] Matty: I was surprised when I started running Facebook ads that have actually been pretty successful for me and get a lot of engagement. I have a lot of people liking my ads and then oftentimes they'll put, I read this and it was great or this looks really good. And I'll like or make little brief comments as seems appropriate. And a lot of those people I then invite to my author Facebook page. A lot of them accept the invitation, and I can see a lot of them are there and sometimes they like pictures, but there's no interaction.
[00:18:11] Jason: I've had the same thing where the Facebook ads do result in interaction. I think that's just limited by the cost-effectiveness of running the ads in the first place. So now my Facebook ads are, one, handled by the publisher, but when I did them, I wasn't always doing it. It'd be sporadic when an ad would stop working, I shut it off. So for me, it was never really viable. And it's also pay to play. So for me, it was never really a viable means of increasing the group size.
[00:18:34] I like that traffic to be organic. Like people were genuinely interested in the books and they want to join, whether they're a lurker or they want to actively post and comment. It doesn't matter to me. I just want a place where Everybody can be in, it's a safe place in the internet where you're not going to be getting political dissertations or any kind of negativity. Another reason I don't do Twitter beyond new release posts.
[00:18:56] Matty: Do you have to spend a lot of time or any time moderating the conversation to ensure people are complying with those rules?
[00:19:05] Jason: It's pretty minimal. I have not come close to the point where I need to think about an assistant to do that or to hire a moderator because I check in a few times a day, I see whenever somebody comments, I read through all the posts, I like everything. Some of that's how I track what I've read when I post something and there are a bunch of comments posted, I'll go through and like all the comments. I'll reply to people here and there or whatever warrants that. But then when I go back in and check it, I can see whatever posts I haven't liked, it's something new. And it's very rare I have to delete a post or somebody goes left and right.
[00:19:34] Matty: You had said that you had committed all your upcoming books to Severn River as well. Did you ever consider approaching this with a hybrid approach publishing some indy, some with Severn River?
[00:19:47] Jason: No I wanted to go all in for a couple of reasons. One, for the few amount of books I have -- so I just published my 10th book -- it's not enough. If I had a vast backlist with multiple series and everything, I think a hybrid approach would be worth considering. But for the few amount of books have, I'm relatively new in my career.
[00:20:05] I haven't hit the four-year point yet, or I just broke the four-year point of when I published my first book. So I don't think there's a lot of incentive for a publisher to take on some projects, not all, because for me, that would be benefiting from all their marketing activities, selling my backlist, short as it is. So I just don't have enough out there yet to even make that a consideration.
[00:20:26] Matty: It's just sad to hear someone call 10 books not enough, although I see where you're coming from.
[00:20:31] Jason: Yeah. I look at all the heavy hitters, all the friends of mine. Steve Conklin and all these guys that have got 20 plus books. Yeah, I'm definitely low man on the totem pole by a long shot.
[00:20:41] Matty: I think that wherever you are, it never seems like enough.
[00:20:44] Jason: It's true.
[00:20:45] Matty: I have six novels now and I always think, Oh if only I had 10, and then when I get to 10, I'm sure I'll say, Oh, if only I had 20.
[00:20:53] Jason: I have no doubt. I will be right there with you every step of the way.
[00:20:57] Matty: The book that I got of yours, THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY, which is a David Rivers thriller, and just came out on January 15th <2021>. It's in Kindle Unlimited. Are all your books Kindle Unlimited?
[00:21:08] Jason: Yes. The only two exceptions are my freebies. I've had a short story novella and I offer as mailing lists incentives. And just because I know a lot of people bend this rule and I've never heard of anybody getting called on it, but I don't want to do anything that could be perceived as a violation of Amazon terms of service. I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me. So those two are wide. And if they ever allow it as you can give away something on your website but do it nowhere else and still have Kindle Unlimited, I would. I think about half my readership right now is Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
[00:21:41] Matty: And did that change at all? Where you KU when you were indy and continued being in KU with Severn River?
[00:21:46] Jason: Yes, I started KU just because I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't really have the time to look into all these other retailers. And then I haven't seen anything that has contradicted that in my experience since. I know author friends that I have that are successful wide got started way earlier than I did, and they built audiences across these other retailers, so it may make sense for them going forward. And even then, some of them have pulled into KU because it just opens up a whole new category of reader, which is why Amazon's taking over the world. They know what they're doing. But, yeah, I never had an audience anywhere else. And honestly, I didn't see any reason to start all the way up until signing with a publisher last year.
[00:22:24] Matty: I want to switch a little bit from the whole indy / traditional / marketing theme, because I can't have someone who is a Ranger and a special forces officer and a Green Beret without asking some questions about that. So when you're writing stories based on your own experiences, how close do you feel that you can represent what actually happened or are there any circumstances where for security reasons or whatever reasons you feel like you have to adjust a little bit what the true nature of that situation or that character or that technology would be.
[00:23:00] Jason: Sure. One, I don't represent any actual situations. I don't do any real gunfights or anything that occurred at a certain place in Afghanistan or Iraq, and I don't have any desire to. I like writing fiction. And I know the closest I strayed to exposing my personal life is writing too on the nose where I almost was a character because it was my first book, and I didn't know any better. And as soon as I started getting enough experience to break away from that and start from scratch, the depth and quality of the writing increased exponentially because I wasn't emotionally tied to anything that I was trying to honestly represent.
[00:23:32] So, one, I stay away from all these historical events. I think the real value of experience for me personally, it doesn't have to be everybody, but there's so many elements of authenticity you can inject. What does it feel like to have a round crack by your head, bullet crack by your ear? What's it like to be out there when the first rocket comes across and a gunfight starts? How do people talk and move and react in these situations? Those elements of authenticity. How can a mission go sideways, turn on a dime? I inject a lot of that into my books. And it works for me creatively, makes the scenarios much richer.
But I don't do any actual events, and then the real consideration for security purposes and everything would be, if you were accurately representing tactics where somebody could, and I've gotten this question before, Google how you see tactics and equipment. And I think if your story is hinges upon accuracy and military detail, you're probably failing from a story construction standpoint, right? The plot should be compelling enough. And narrative drive should be good enough that the equipment and the gear is more or less interchangeable.
[00:24:29] Even the guys that write heavy nitnoid detail into gear and equipment and Jack
Carr does it very well. You know what brand of pocket knife the dude has, what camouflage pattern he has, and it's nothing tied to operational security and he could just as easily switch all those terms with some equivalent.
[00:24:44] And then for the stuff that you really don't want anybody to know in terms of tactics or procedures, it's easy to describe things in generalities. Brad Taylor was a unit officer squadron commander, and he will talk about his guys clearing a room and he's not saying exactly how they would. He describes the momentum of it, the flow, but he's not getting into this guy does this exact thing at this point, where somebody could dissect his work.
[00:25:08] Matty: Obviously anyone could pick up a book by someone who has had the experience you are your colleagues have had and possibly learn something from it. But it also makes me wonder if that's where they're getting their information, maybe they're not very ominous bad guys anyway, because you would think that It shouldn't be a reliable source of information necessarily. And so if that's where they're getting their information, it's just an interesting consideration.
[00:25:33] Chris Grall was on the podcast talking about mistakes writers make about firearms and how to avoid them. And he was describing all the ways people could do research to make sure that the Information was accurate. And Chris has advised me -- whenever there are firearms in any of my books, Chris has always been the person who's told me whether I'm getting it right or not. And I can't remember if this was in the podcast or just conversation that he and I have had, but it was that at some point, even if you're right, it's distracting to include the detail because there's going to be some fanatic out there who says the stock of this is actually made of this material and Chris could say, no, it's not, but it doesn't matter because at that point, you've already distracted them by making them think about it. Is that a consideration? Do you write it all out and then do you go back and say, are there some details here that are just too much?
[00:26:24] Jason: Yeah. Generally my editor will call me on like, stop, you've gone way too far. In THE ENEMY IS MY COUNTRY, there's a high-altitude parachute scene that originally as written was a lot longer, in terms of how they calculate the release point using a high-altitude computer based on winds calculated every 2000 feet down to ground level and how that would affect the parachute pattern. And she was like, just stop, just chop, this whole chunk is completely unnecessary.
[00:26:47] So I try to write using my best judgment for what would be interesting, what exposition I can intersperse while keeping the narrative drive and the suspense up. a lot of times I get it right. A lot of times I don't. And if I don't catch it in rereads, I've been working with the same editor for, 10 now, 11 books now. and I trust her that she will call me on it. And she's been doing it for a long time and she understands what I'm trying to get across. She knows all my series. So yeah, she'll call me on it if I exceed my bounds, which happens often.
[00:27:14] Matty: You're having to walk a very difficult line because for example, in THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY, they're very exciting scenes about battles and parachute jumps and things like that interspersed with scenes of parents taking their daughter out for ice cream. And that's tough to carry a reader from those two very extreme senses. It's effective because you're illustrating these two very different worlds that the protagonist is living in. But do you have any tips there for when you're accommodating such two very different types of scenes?
[00:27:48] Jason: Yeah, so I would mainly say don't do it. And the only reason I did it in THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY. the normal thriller convention, especially in military thrillers, it's my personal 2 cents and I’m not an industry insider, just my own reading and everything I’ve experienced in the genre, typically the hero doesn't have a family. And if he does, if there's a wife, her job is to get shot or killed in the opening page is to incur his wrath on all these villains and drive the rest of the story.
So this book was an exception. I just want him to twist that convention and want to have, no, he does have a wife. He does have a daughter. They don't know what he does professionally. He's on the other side of the world. He uncovers a terrorist plot. It's going to take place in his hometown in four days. And his wife and kid are mentioned by name.
[00:28:34] That was the premise I started with to make this book. And the whole theme for the book is kind of family. It's never really stated, but in the book, there's biological family, adopted family, family in terms of the brotherhood of arms. And then people handling it counter pointed with some people lost their family through a variety of factors. Some people have managed to hold on, but they're not being truthful with them. So that was almost a story consideration exclusively for this one book.
[00:28:50] And I was able to tie that in because it was driven by that premise that he finds these people in danger and the path crosses where they don't know what he does. He's a CIA contractor working overseas. And at some point, it all comes to a head where the truth is out there. That's the only reason I did it. And even for the second book, and I've plotted a 10-book outline for the series, and I'll tell you the opportunities to do that our few and far between. You can't have, Oh, now they're under attack from another angle, right?
[00:29:21] Taken seven. Now the daughter is kidnapped again. So the second book, which I'm working on now, is all tactical. It's all one multi-day mission where you're not going to -- spoiler -- you're not going to see the family. And I discussed this with my editor and it just, there's not a good way to do it. And to try to do that would feel forced and contrived, and ultimately the story is god, right? The story is king and whatever serves that best. So that's not an act that I will be repeating, if that makes sense.
[00:29:52] Matty: Yeah. That totally makes sense. It will be interesting in your reader group to see how people react when that aspect is not present in the follow-ons. And I'm realizing that the reader group is also a great market research, right? Because you can see what people chat about in there
[00:30:06] Jason: You can see what people chat about. And I also do surveys routinely -- Hey, here's three title options, here's what the cover designer came back with. And even now with the publisher, they send me this stuff because I've asked them like, I want my reader group to be involved. And they are, like you said, market research. So my publisher happily provides, okay, here's the first four options the cover designer came back with for cover composition and I throw it up on my group and generally there's a clearly delineated right answer for what the majority of the people like.
[00:30:34] So yeah, in terms of market research it's extremely helpful. I think the readers enjoy it too. If I had an author that I rabidly followed, I would like feeling involved in the process and my readers genuinely are, and it's easy to do. It takes me two seconds to throw up a poll and go through the answers. So yeah, it is excellent to have that option.
[00:30:53] Matty: A reader group is something that I'm taking as an investigative item for myself as a follow on to our conversation.
[00:31:00] In your bio. I mentioned that a portion of all your sales benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Tell a little bit about that.
[00:31:07] Jason: Sure. So in a nutshell, they've been running 40 years, are a five star rated charity. I donated them when I was in the military as well. What they do is any special operator who dies in combat or training, they take the financial burden for all of their children's education from wherever they are all the way through college degree, post-graduate education if the kid wants to pursue it, SAT prep, everything. Which I think means a lot to the guys who are out there.
[00:31:31] And it sounds like a niche, but the US special operations forces are 2% of the military and they're responsible for 75% of all the combat casualties, so it's a disproportionate burden that this community bears. And I think the Special Operations Warrior Foundation has just been providing such an amazing job. They've got, I think, 1,400 kids now that they're directly financing.
[00:31:52] And then the other thing they do is emergency financial assistance. The special operator gets wounded overseas and they get medevac’d from Afghanistan to Germany at a hospital, they've got the spouse on a plane before the military can start going through the red tape of approving the funding. They do financial grants until the soldiers back on his feet, takes care of whatever the family needs.
[00:32:11] So think it's a really good cause and leaving that community and I wanted to find a small way to continue contributing to them. Because the special operations community gave me everything and the guys I worked with, it was just incredible. So I do 1% of all my gross profit, anything I make from any source, goes to them on a monthly basis.
[00:32:29] And then for this book, and THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY is my 10th book, new series starter, and I told my readers I would match every pre-order across any format, hardcover, audio book, ebook, I would match that with an additional dollar per pre-order. So it raised over $4,000 in the past two weeks since the book's been out, which I think has been great.
[00:32:45] Matty: That is great. congratulations to you for that success and for doing it.
[00:32:50] Let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and your books online.
[00:32:56] Jason: Sure. My website is Jason-Kasper.com. That's got all my books, all the links for all the retailers that I sell on and all the formats. That's the place to go. I've got the Connect tab. I've got all my social media links, reader, group, and everything else. So one stop shopping.
[00:33:11] Matty: Jason, thank you so much. This has been so interesting.
[00:33:14] Jason: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Matty.
[00:03:42] Jason: I think the Big Five, now Big Four, since Penguin acquired Simon and Schuster, I have no contacts in that industry, I've never had an agent. I've never applied to them. Knowing what I know now, and even then, I didn't have a high degree of confidence that my submission wouldn't end up in a slush pile and then just not be found to be really fitting the demographic they were looking to serve.
[00:04:07] So I think if I wrote more along the lines of what existing authors are doing, where there are really tight comp author targets and I could pitch this would apply to the audience of XYZ, with a very clear delineation, it might've been easier. Like I said, I write whatever I want. I write the stories I want to read. And I think there's enough departures from the traditional thriller tropes and trends that it's not a direct translation. Severn River Publishing was an easy decision for me because I knew the founder, Andrew Watts, he was one of the indy authors who helped me out immeasurably.
[00:04:39] I reached out to him for help -- like, how do you sell books? -- when I realized you couldn't hawk a book or two out there and start getting traction while you kept working on your next novel. So he helped me a lot, told me take this course, here's how you learn ads, read this book, and then really mentored me through, look, you have to have this super complicated spreadsheet, track all your ROIs and everything and accommodate and account for Kindle Unlimited reads, which at the time there was no tracking data for, from Amazon. So he helped me out a ton. He later started that publishing company, Severn River Publishing.
[00:05:09] His initial staff was all military vets and military spouses, so I liked that aspect, and then I just had full faith and confidence. Andrew is, to my mind, a genius because he left the Navy, did four years at Proctor and Gamble, got the best marketing training that any company on earth offers.
[00:05:26] And I had seen when he told me like, look, change your covers, change your description to be XYZ, start running ads this way. And when I started making those changes, my sales went from nothing or from occasionally picking up new readers who happened to stumble across me to turning it into a sustainable and scaling income and making it a business.
[00:05:43] So when I hit the point where I was spending so much time trying to manage that that it was cutting into the number of books that'd be able to produce, I approached him and only him and said, you can take my entire back list. I'll sign all my future books with you. And it was a pretty easy decision for me because I knew him personally, professionally, and we've hung out quite a few times at author events. I didn't trust anyone else with my work. Not that there's not plenty of outstanding publishers who do a great job but seeing what he's done with that company just in the first couple of years, it's the right place for my work.
[00:06:14] Matty: when you were making the decision about going to Andrew and offering up your back list and your upcoming books, was there ever an interim point where you decided you wanted to stay indy, but you wanted to hire somebody to do all those things that you were saying were cutting into your time for writing, like social media and advertising?
[00:06:33] Jason: No, it was never really a feasible option for me. I know authors that have had success with that, that had great assistants. I don't know of any advertising services that have done a better job than an indy could do, at least not at a reasonable price point that would make it worthwhile financially. But the problem with me hiring someone is I have to train them and I was barely trained to do it myself. So it was never really an honest consideration for me. I wanted to go all or nothing.
[00:07:00] Matty: You said either in our conversations before this interview or I read somewhere that the two things that you did carry forward, that you maintained the same way in your current situation as when you were publishing indy, were your mailing list and social media. Talk a little bit about why you decided to do that and how that's working for you.
[00:07:20] Jason: The main reason I wanted to keep my mailing list and social media and retain that all was because I do a lot of reader interaction. I answer every email. I have a Facebook reader group with really good engagement. That's how I communicate with the readers, by and large. My readers become the characters in my books. I use everybody's names and it's a really kind of personal relationship that I couldn't outsource to anyone else. And I'd never really been comfortable with the idea of having an assistant answering emails for me. So I wanted to keep those two things.
[00:07:42] And I think the third big carry over that I do from the indy side is just rate of production. I know for the big four publishing houses it's common to have that one-year book production cycle, of which, regardless of how long it takes the author to write, there's a six-month to a year lead time and the promotional activities and then putting it through the marketing and distribution channels to stock airports and Walmart's and everything else. I know there's trad authors that do two books a year, but I think indies, from my experience, had been the ones to really be writing three or four books a year consistently for their entire career.
[00:08:19] And I picked up that pace of writing as a survival thing, for being in indy, it's all about streamlining your processes and getting your books at the market because you're not reaching as wide of an audience. So now that I'm with a publisher, I've just found myself speeding up. One, my process has gotten more streamlined with experience and then, two, I just have so much more time to dedicate to the work.
[00:08:40] Matty: Percentage wise, how are you dividing your time across writing activities and those remaining promotional and marketing activities that you kept?
[00:08:48] Jason: The remaining promotional stuff, it's maybe 5% of my time. It's not a big deal for me to pop in on my Facebook reader group few times a day and chat with people. I generally sit down once a week and process all the reader emails and just dedicate a block of time for that. And then there's also a little bit of time involved in the reader updates on my mailing list, but that's a once-a-month thing for me generally. So, yeah, best guess, may be 5%.
[00:09:13] Matty: How did your creative process change between your indy experience and having a publisher? For example, you're saying that the fact that Severn River's taking care of a lot of this other stuff is giving you more time to write. In addition to that extra time, did the process itself of writing or editing change for you?
[00:09:34] Jason: No, not too much. I started writing and I just established a process in terms of how I outline a book and take it from initial concept to finished product. I just want to have a process so I could just make adjustments as I went. and then every book, I tweak it a little bit. I shortened some parts and what used to take me two or three weeks to lay out all my note cards and the whole screenwriting process of building the act sequences and scenes to make up the story, I can sit down and in a few days or a week, have my note cards laid out to the point where I don't need to delve any more into the scenes. I don't need to nitpick anything. I can just tell that critical mass when I can just get started writing.
[00:10:14] The big difference in signing with a publisher is everything takes me less time now, but I still don't really type much faster. I'm still maybe a 3,000, 3,500 words a day kind of guy. But I can generate that a lot quicker and then be processing, and my editor gets back the last manuscript to me, it's a lot easier to pencil in time to get those edits done and back without really slowing pace on the book I'm working on.
[00:10:39] Matty: Do you ever get assignments from your editor about what they want the next book to be about or is that totally up to you?
[00:10:44] Jason: Totally up to me, fortunately. Not that I don't mind guidance or input, but I like to run my own ship creatively.
[00:10:53] Matty: The thing that strikes me, that's also unusual about your publisher relationship, is that it sounds like at least when it started out, it was largely staffed by fellow military people. And so before I realized that, what I was wondering is, was the fact of your not only writing military thrillers, which many people do, but having had that experience yourself, was that attractive to the publisher? I guess the question is still legitimate -- were they specifically looking for people who had that experience directly?
[00:11:26] Jason: No. They've since hired outside of the military community. They've just expanded to that point. I don't think military experience, one, from any publisher's perspective, is a prerequisite. There's plenty of guys who serve in the military and they can't write well. There's plenty of people who haven't served in the military. Look at Tom Clancy. He literally invented the bar and then set it for what a military thriller is. Never served a day, but he got the research down and was authentic enough and nobody's going to call about technical inconsistency.
[00:11:53] So I think what's attractive to my publisher, and probably any publisher looking to hire an indy, is what's your existing readership? How are your books launching? How are they selling? What's the read-through between books and the series? Yeah, the military experience helps me personally in the process of creating a book, but I don't think that's a major consideration for them.
[00:12:12] Matty: Do you see a difference in how they're marketing your books versus other authors that they're representing that don't have that background? For example, is your advertising targeting people with a military background?
[00:12:24] Jason: Some of it. For the military books, they'll tweak -- and it's not so military-specific as it is whatever's going on increased conversion, as any good advertiser will do. So case in point, they've also got a former detective, a retired cop who writes crime, thrillers named Brian Shea. Hugely successful. So his advertising copy might be, crime fiction written by a detective. Mine might be military thrillers or black ops thrillers by a former Green Beret. If somebody doesn't have that background, they just do good advertising copy. And I think that all comes down to just whatever increases conversion. And if that detective experience or military experience doesn't convert well, they'll try another set of copy and keep running it until they optimize it.
[00:13:07] Matty: You had mentioned the fact that you have a Facebook reader group. Can you describe a little bit about how you interact with that group? How it got set up? What benefits you're seeing from that?
[00:13:18] Jason: Sure. I'm not a big social media guy at all. And Andrew Watts helped me out. A couple of years ago, Facebook made that change where basically if you posted under a personal profile or even a professional page, it wasn't going to get any exposure. Facebook started redirecting everything towards groups that you subscribed to.
[00:13:36] So when that change started happening, I think a couple of years ago now, a lot of authors started going to having their own reader group and setting that up. I remember that was big talk in the indy community at the time. And Andrew just texted me, Hey, you need to start a reader group. And I said okay.
[00:13:51] And I literally clicked through the process to do it. And I was like, should it be private or public, or do a private group, take applications to screen the bots and the spammers. So I just started it and initially it was just book updates and some giveaways and stuff and organically evolved with the type of people were subscribing and what people responded to.
[00:14:08] And now there is no strategy. I don't plan any posts ahead of time. Half the time I'm drunk or here's a picture I took of my cat or we're talking about bourbon. It's just a wide variety of people on there and post stream of conscious of whatever comes to mind, whatever I think might be funny or entertaining. Generally positive stuff. I just do no book spoilers, no politics, so it's just very inclusive. And other readers post life achievements or stuff about their kids. And it's just this collective conversation. It's interesting because some of the readers are now friends with each other and correspond with each other. Everybody knows each other's pets, kids, whatever.
And then there's also a good amount of updates to my books. And also when I have friends who write similar -- Andrew Watts, LT Ryan and Brian Shea -- I'll be like, Hey, here's a new release out. Because you can't produce books fast enough for the kind of readers who are going through the indy ranks. These aren't the people who are looking for a one book a year beach read, they're crushing, some of them, multiple books a week. So it was good to give some love to your fellow authors. And I've got all my author friends who write in the same genre, we all support each other. We all promote each other's releases internally with our own readership.
[00:15:14] So I constantly had readers coming to me like, Oh yeah, I'm glad LT Ryan told me about your books and I'm glad, CG Cooper mentioned you, and it just ends up being a really positive thing for everybody involved.
[00:15:25] Matty: Are they members of your reader group?
[00:15:27] Jason: Yes. Not necessarily active. We're all members of each other's reader groups and everything, but mostly it's if we tag each other in a new release or a reader tags them, they get the notification and come in and respond to it.
[00:15:39] The urban fantasy crowd is really sophisticated with their Facebook takeovers and cross promotional stuff. And I've occasionally done stuff like that, where they'll let you post in their group for something that would appeal to their readership. But the thriller crowd's not nearly that sophisticated. We're all just doing our thing, writing and helping each other out where we can.
[00:15:57] Matty: The reader group is really interesting. I have, of course, an author Facebook page and I'm always trying to get people to engage on that, asking questions or saying here's a picture of my dog, post a picture of your dog. Crickets. So I'm very interested in hearing the success you're having. How do you get the word out about the reader group?
[00:16:19] Jason: First off, I will commiserate with you. I get no traction on my Facebook author page. None. I set it up pretty much for Facebook ads initially, and now I'll just post a new release on it whenever it happens. And it's zero engagement, very few people. And that's part of Facebook structure. You post your professional page and, hey, you want to boost this post, dot dot dot. Otherwise nobody's going to see it. And in my case, nobody does. So for getting the word out about the group, I do a few things.
[00:16:45] One, on the Facebook page, I have a pinned post at the top. It says, join Jason Kasper’s reader group, connecting with readers, opportunities for giveaways, books, cameos, everything I do within that group. So if anybody arrives at my author page from a cold search, they will find it. In my back matter, all my social links, and even at my website, my Facebook link isn't to my author page, just to my Facebook reader group, because I don't care if anybody follows my page. You like it, you're not going to see anything I post there and I'm not paying for it.
[00:17:13] So I do the pinned post, and then in my email sequence, I have early on when somebody signs up for my mailing list on my website, which is also prominently displayed in all my books, I do a lot of CTA for the mailing list. And I do a freebie incentives as well. So in one of those early emails, there's a P.S.: Now that you're a reader, if you'd like to join my Facebook group, join 800 other fans for these opportunities, and it results in a steady trickle of people coming in.
[00:17:39] Matty: I was surprised when I started running Facebook ads that have actually been pretty successful for me and get a lot of engagement. I have a lot of people liking my ads and then oftentimes they'll put, I read this and it was great or this looks really good. And I'll like or make little brief comments as seems appropriate. And a lot of those people I then invite to my author Facebook page. A lot of them accept the invitation, and I can see a lot of them are there and sometimes they like pictures, but there's no interaction.
[00:18:11] Jason: I've had the same thing where the Facebook ads do result in interaction. I think that's just limited by the cost-effectiveness of running the ads in the first place. So now my Facebook ads are, one, handled by the publisher, but when I did them, I wasn't always doing it. It'd be sporadic when an ad would stop working, I shut it off. So for me, it was never really viable. And it's also pay to play. So for me, it was never really a viable means of increasing the group size.
[00:18:34] I like that traffic to be organic. Like people were genuinely interested in the books and they want to join, whether they're a lurker or they want to actively post and comment. It doesn't matter to me. I just want a place where Everybody can be in, it's a safe place in the internet where you're not going to be getting political dissertations or any kind of negativity. Another reason I don't do Twitter beyond new release posts.
[00:18:56] Matty: Do you have to spend a lot of time or any time moderating the conversation to ensure people are complying with those rules?
[00:19:05] Jason: It's pretty minimal. I have not come close to the point where I need to think about an assistant to do that or to hire a moderator because I check in a few times a day, I see whenever somebody comments, I read through all the posts, I like everything. Some of that's how I track what I've read when I post something and there are a bunch of comments posted, I'll go through and like all the comments. I'll reply to people here and there or whatever warrants that. But then when I go back in and check it, I can see whatever posts I haven't liked, it's something new. And it's very rare I have to delete a post or somebody goes left and right.
[00:19:34] Matty: You had said that you had committed all your upcoming books to Severn River as well. Did you ever consider approaching this with a hybrid approach publishing some indy, some with Severn River?
[00:19:47] Jason: No I wanted to go all in for a couple of reasons. One, for the few amount of books I have -- so I just published my 10th book -- it's not enough. If I had a vast backlist with multiple series and everything, I think a hybrid approach would be worth considering. But for the few amount of books have, I'm relatively new in my career.
[00:20:05] I haven't hit the four-year point yet, or I just broke the four-year point of when I published my first book. So I don't think there's a lot of incentive for a publisher to take on some projects, not all, because for me, that would be benefiting from all their marketing activities, selling my backlist, short as it is. So I just don't have enough out there yet to even make that a consideration.
[00:20:26] Matty: It's just sad to hear someone call 10 books not enough, although I see where you're coming from.
[00:20:31] Jason: Yeah. I look at all the heavy hitters, all the friends of mine. Steve Conklin and all these guys that have got 20 plus books. Yeah, I'm definitely low man on the totem pole by a long shot.
[00:20:41] Matty: I think that wherever you are, it never seems like enough.
[00:20:44] Jason: It's true.
[00:20:45] Matty: I have six novels now and I always think, Oh if only I had 10, and then when I get to 10, I'm sure I'll say, Oh, if only I had 20.
[00:20:53] Jason: I have no doubt. I will be right there with you every step of the way.
[00:20:57] Matty: The book that I got of yours, THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY, which is a David Rivers thriller, and just came out on January 15th <2021>. It's in Kindle Unlimited. Are all your books Kindle Unlimited?
[00:21:08] Jason: Yes. The only two exceptions are my freebies. I've had a short story novella and I offer as mailing lists incentives. And just because I know a lot of people bend this rule and I've never heard of anybody getting called on it, but I don't want to do anything that could be perceived as a violation of Amazon terms of service. I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me. So those two are wide. And if they ever allow it as you can give away something on your website but do it nowhere else and still have Kindle Unlimited, I would. I think about half my readership right now is Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
[00:21:41] Matty: And did that change at all? Where you KU when you were indy and continued being in KU with Severn River?
[00:21:46] Jason: Yes, I started KU just because I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't really have the time to look into all these other retailers. And then I haven't seen anything that has contradicted that in my experience since. I know author friends that I have that are successful wide got started way earlier than I did, and they built audiences across these other retailers, so it may make sense for them going forward. And even then, some of them have pulled into KU because it just opens up a whole new category of reader, which is why Amazon's taking over the world. They know what they're doing. But, yeah, I never had an audience anywhere else. And honestly, I didn't see any reason to start all the way up until signing with a publisher last year.
[00:22:24] Matty: I want to switch a little bit from the whole indy / traditional / marketing theme, because I can't have someone who is a Ranger and a special forces officer and a Green Beret without asking some questions about that. So when you're writing stories based on your own experiences, how close do you feel that you can represent what actually happened or are there any circumstances where for security reasons or whatever reasons you feel like you have to adjust a little bit what the true nature of that situation or that character or that technology would be.
[00:23:00] Jason: Sure. One, I don't represent any actual situations. I don't do any real gunfights or anything that occurred at a certain place in Afghanistan or Iraq, and I don't have any desire to. I like writing fiction. And I know the closest I strayed to exposing my personal life is writing too on the nose where I almost was a character because it was my first book, and I didn't know any better. And as soon as I started getting enough experience to break away from that and start from scratch, the depth and quality of the writing increased exponentially because I wasn't emotionally tied to anything that I was trying to honestly represent.
[00:23:32] So, one, I stay away from all these historical events. I think the real value of experience for me personally, it doesn't have to be everybody, but there's so many elements of authenticity you can inject. What does it feel like to have a round crack by your head, bullet crack by your ear? What's it like to be out there when the first rocket comes across and a gunfight starts? How do people talk and move and react in these situations? Those elements of authenticity. How can a mission go sideways, turn on a dime? I inject a lot of that into my books. And it works for me creatively, makes the scenarios much richer.
But I don't do any actual events, and then the real consideration for security purposes and everything would be, if you were accurately representing tactics where somebody could, and I've gotten this question before, Google how you see tactics and equipment. And I think if your story is hinges upon accuracy and military detail, you're probably failing from a story construction standpoint, right? The plot should be compelling enough. And narrative drive should be good enough that the equipment and the gear is more or less interchangeable.
[00:24:29] Even the guys that write heavy nitnoid detail into gear and equipment and Jack
Carr does it very well. You know what brand of pocket knife the dude has, what camouflage pattern he has, and it's nothing tied to operational security and he could just as easily switch all those terms with some equivalent.
[00:24:44] And then for the stuff that you really don't want anybody to know in terms of tactics or procedures, it's easy to describe things in generalities. Brad Taylor was a unit officer squadron commander, and he will talk about his guys clearing a room and he's not saying exactly how they would. He describes the momentum of it, the flow, but he's not getting into this guy does this exact thing at this point, where somebody could dissect his work.
[00:25:08] Matty: Obviously anyone could pick up a book by someone who has had the experience you are your colleagues have had and possibly learn something from it. But it also makes me wonder if that's where they're getting their information, maybe they're not very ominous bad guys anyway, because you would think that It shouldn't be a reliable source of information necessarily. And so if that's where they're getting their information, it's just an interesting consideration.
[00:25:33] Chris Grall was on the podcast talking about mistakes writers make about firearms and how to avoid them. And he was describing all the ways people could do research to make sure that the Information was accurate. And Chris has advised me -- whenever there are firearms in any of my books, Chris has always been the person who's told me whether I'm getting it right or not. And I can't remember if this was in the podcast or just conversation that he and I have had, but it was that at some point, even if you're right, it's distracting to include the detail because there's going to be some fanatic out there who says the stock of this is actually made of this material and Chris could say, no, it's not, but it doesn't matter because at that point, you've already distracted them by making them think about it. Is that a consideration? Do you write it all out and then do you go back and say, are there some details here that are just too much?
[00:26:24] Jason: Yeah. Generally my editor will call me on like, stop, you've gone way too far. In THE ENEMY IS MY COUNTRY, there's a high-altitude parachute scene that originally as written was a lot longer, in terms of how they calculate the release point using a high-altitude computer based on winds calculated every 2000 feet down to ground level and how that would affect the parachute pattern. And she was like, just stop, just chop, this whole chunk is completely unnecessary.
[00:26:47] So I try to write using my best judgment for what would be interesting, what exposition I can intersperse while keeping the narrative drive and the suspense up. a lot of times I get it right. A lot of times I don't. And if I don't catch it in rereads, I've been working with the same editor for, 10 now, 11 books now. and I trust her that she will call me on it. And she's been doing it for a long time and she understands what I'm trying to get across. She knows all my series. So yeah, she'll call me on it if I exceed my bounds, which happens often.
[00:27:14] Matty: You're having to walk a very difficult line because for example, in THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY, they're very exciting scenes about battles and parachute jumps and things like that interspersed with scenes of parents taking their daughter out for ice cream. And that's tough to carry a reader from those two very extreme senses. It's effective because you're illustrating these two very different worlds that the protagonist is living in. But do you have any tips there for when you're accommodating such two very different types of scenes?
[00:27:48] Jason: Yeah, so I would mainly say don't do it. And the only reason I did it in THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY. the normal thriller convention, especially in military thrillers, it's my personal 2 cents and I’m not an industry insider, just my own reading and everything I’ve experienced in the genre, typically the hero doesn't have a family. And if he does, if there's a wife, her job is to get shot or killed in the opening page is to incur his wrath on all these villains and drive the rest of the story.
So this book was an exception. I just want him to twist that convention and want to have, no, he does have a wife. He does have a daughter. They don't know what he does professionally. He's on the other side of the world. He uncovers a terrorist plot. It's going to take place in his hometown in four days. And his wife and kid are mentioned by name.
[00:28:34] That was the premise I started with to make this book. And the whole theme for the book is kind of family. It's never really stated, but in the book, there's biological family, adopted family, family in terms of the brotherhood of arms. And then people handling it counter pointed with some people lost their family through a variety of factors. Some people have managed to hold on, but they're not being truthful with them. So that was almost a story consideration exclusively for this one book.
[00:28:50] And I was able to tie that in because it was driven by that premise that he finds these people in danger and the path crosses where they don't know what he does. He's a CIA contractor working overseas. And at some point, it all comes to a head where the truth is out there. That's the only reason I did it. And even for the second book, and I've plotted a 10-book outline for the series, and I'll tell you the opportunities to do that our few and far between. You can't have, Oh, now they're under attack from another angle, right?
[00:29:21] Taken seven. Now the daughter is kidnapped again. So the second book, which I'm working on now, is all tactical. It's all one multi-day mission where you're not going to -- spoiler -- you're not going to see the family. And I discussed this with my editor and it just, there's not a good way to do it. And to try to do that would feel forced and contrived, and ultimately the story is god, right? The story is king and whatever serves that best. So that's not an act that I will be repeating, if that makes sense.
[00:29:52] Matty: Yeah. That totally makes sense. It will be interesting in your reader group to see how people react when that aspect is not present in the follow-ons. And I'm realizing that the reader group is also a great market research, right? Because you can see what people chat about in there
[00:30:06] Jason: You can see what people chat about. And I also do surveys routinely -- Hey, here's three title options, here's what the cover designer came back with. And even now with the publisher, they send me this stuff because I've asked them like, I want my reader group to be involved. And they are, like you said, market research. So my publisher happily provides, okay, here's the first four options the cover designer came back with for cover composition and I throw it up on my group and generally there's a clearly delineated right answer for what the majority of the people like.
[00:30:34] So yeah, in terms of market research it's extremely helpful. I think the readers enjoy it too. If I had an author that I rabidly followed, I would like feeling involved in the process and my readers genuinely are, and it's easy to do. It takes me two seconds to throw up a poll and go through the answers. So yeah, it is excellent to have that option.
[00:30:53] Matty: A reader group is something that I'm taking as an investigative item for myself as a follow on to our conversation.
[00:31:00] In your bio. I mentioned that a portion of all your sales benefits the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Tell a little bit about that.
[00:31:07] Jason: Sure. So in a nutshell, they've been running 40 years, are a five star rated charity. I donated them when I was in the military as well. What they do is any special operator who dies in combat or training, they take the financial burden for all of their children's education from wherever they are all the way through college degree, post-graduate education if the kid wants to pursue it, SAT prep, everything. Which I think means a lot to the guys who are out there.
[00:31:31] And it sounds like a niche, but the US special operations forces are 2% of the military and they're responsible for 75% of all the combat casualties, so it's a disproportionate burden that this community bears. And I think the Special Operations Warrior Foundation has just been providing such an amazing job. They've got, I think, 1,400 kids now that they're directly financing.
[00:31:52] And then the other thing they do is emergency financial assistance. The special operator gets wounded overseas and they get medevac’d from Afghanistan to Germany at a hospital, they've got the spouse on a plane before the military can start going through the red tape of approving the funding. They do financial grants until the soldiers back on his feet, takes care of whatever the family needs.
[00:32:11] So think it's a really good cause and leaving that community and I wanted to find a small way to continue contributing to them. Because the special operations community gave me everything and the guys I worked with, it was just incredible. So I do 1% of all my gross profit, anything I make from any source, goes to them on a monthly basis.
[00:32:29] And then for this book, and THE ENEMIES OF MY COUNTRY is my 10th book, new series starter, and I told my readers I would match every pre-order across any format, hardcover, audio book, ebook, I would match that with an additional dollar per pre-order. So it raised over $4,000 in the past two weeks since the book's been out, which I think has been great.
[00:32:45] Matty: That is great. congratulations to you for that success and for doing it.
[00:32:50] Let the listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and your books online.
[00:32:56] Jason: Sure. My website is Jason-Kasper.com. That's got all my books, all the links for all the retailers that I sell on and all the formats. That's the place to go. I've got the Connect tab. I've got all my social media links, reader, group, and everything else. So one stop shopping.
[00:33:11] Matty: Jason, thank you so much. This has been so interesting.
[00:33:14] Jason: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Matty.
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