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Interview with J.D. Barker – S. 10, Ep. 25
- 2025/05/04
- 再生時間： 1分未満
- ポッドキャスト
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サマリー
あらすじ・解説
My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer J.D. Barker. Don't miss our discussion on writing across different genres and the benefits of collaborative writing. You can download a copy of transcript here. Debbi (00:52): Hi everyone. My guest today is a New York Times and international bestselling author whose work has been broadly described as suspense thrillers, often incorporating elements of horror, crime mystery, science fiction and supernatural. That's quite a bit. His debut novel Forsaken was a finalist for the Bram Stroker Award in 2014. Several of his works have been optioned for adaptation to motion pictures. It's my pleasure to have with me my guest, JD Barker. Hi, JD. How you doing today? J.D. (01:32): I'm doing great, Debbi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Debbi (01:34): Well, it's my pleasure to have you on, believe me. I'm glad you're here. I love that you have no problem with mixing genres in your work. I think that's awesome. Would you say that there's any particular genre that tends to be dominant in your writing? J.D. (01:51): Well, it's funny. I grew up, I've been writing my entire life, but I worked behind the scenes for about 20 some years. I worked as a book doctor and a ghost writer, basically helping other people get published, and one of the things I saw over and over again is an author would write a particular book and it would hit, and then all of a sudden they had to write that same book, but different for the next 20 books. The publisher just wanted that same book but different, and honestly, that scared me. I didn't want to get caught in that kind of hole, so I made a conscious effort from the very beginning. I'm a huge fan of horror. I'm a huge fan of thrillers, so I basically bounced back and forth, and I think my Wikipedia page probably sums it up the best. I think that's what you were reading from, but I describe it as a suspense novel as the common thread with little elements of horror, of sci-fi of this, of that and what that allows me to do. As long as I keep that thriller-suspense framework in place, I can branch out a little bit and the readers come along for the ride. It's not so different that it frightens 'em off. As long as I keep that thriller-suspense framework in place, I can branch out a little bit and the readers come along for the ride. It's not so different that it frightens 'em off. Debbi (02:51): That's really cool. That's great. So it gives you more flexibility J.D. (02:54): And agents hate it, and publishers hate it because again, they want you to write that same book, but different. But I'm finding that the fans, they actually enjoy it because I'm not giving them the same book every single time. I think it gets old as a reader too, so it allows me to mix it up and just keep it fresh. Debbi (03:12): Totally, I agree. Yeah, so you're directly reaching the readership as opposed to going through what a publisher thinks this should work, which is something I've advocated a long time. J.D. (03:27): Everybody approaches this from different angles, which is something else I picked up on over time. As a business model, publishers really only care about selling that book, the one they have in front of 'em, the one they signed you for. That's really their only priority. But you as an author, you really need to look at your business, your model, your brand, and approach it from that standpoint. And you can really see the stark differences. If you walk into a major bookstore, you walk into a Barnes & Noble and you're going to see pretty much the title of every book is huge. The author name is tiny little print at the top or the bottom. It's an afterthought because the publisher knows they have to put it on there, but they just want to sell that one title. But if you look around that same bookstore at the brand name authors, the ones that we all know, the household names, you see Stephen King, Nora Roberts, James Patterson,