His latest book is the adventure/suspense, The Fulton Incident.
You can visit Jordan Ekeroth’s website at www.jordanekeroth.com.
Connect & Socialize with Jordan!
Thanks for letting us interrogate interview
you! Can you give us a go-for-the-gut
answer as to why you wanted to be an author?
I was always a big
reader and was beginning to grow as a writer. Then I went through an absolute
emotional roller-coaster over the course of a few months and knew that I needed
to channel my inner turmoil towards creative energy. I started writing a story
as a means of expressing myself, but it took on a life of its own. I don't
think it's overstating the matter to say that, in a way, writing this book
saved me.
Tell us (we won’t tell promise!)
is it all it’s cracked up to be? I mean
what are the perks and what are the demands?
I can't speak for everyone, but for me, it was all worth it
in the end. It starts with the promise of perks. "Write a book and people
will buy it and you'll make money!" Then it quickly turns into months and
months of demands. Empty pages that will devour all the ink you have to pour
into them and still never be satiated. Editors who have you rewrite and
restructure something that felt so brilliant in the moment you penned it but
damn it you know they're right. But then there comes a moment when it's done
when you can look at what you've created and somehow it all seems worth it.
Which route did you take –
traditional or self-published – and can you give us the nitty gritty low down
on what’s that like?
I went straight for self-published. This was an intensely
personal project for me and I wanted that to be reflected in every choice I made.
Tell us for real what your family
feels about you spending so much time getting your book written, polished,
edited, formatted, published, what have you?
My family has been
amazing, my biggest fans without a doubt. They read my (in the words of Anne Lamotte),
Shitty First Draft, and made me feel like it could actually be good. Now that
it's done and being sold and read I know they're all intensely proud of me.
This is for pet lovers. If you don’t own a pet, skip this question,
but do your pets actually get their food on time or do they have to wait until
you type just one more word?
My family has had a
dog for years and thankfully my brother has taken it upon himself to be her
sole caretaker. If it was up to me to feed her, she would have dug a hole to
Petco a long time ago.
In writing your book, how did you
deal with the phone ringing, your family needing dinner or your boss calling
you saying you’re late?
I actually had the
amazing opportunity to be in Uganda
for several weeks last summer. This was when most of the book was written and I
have no doubt that the complete lack of connectivity to the outside world was
perhaps the only reason I was actually able to finish the book. What's more,
being there was a great aid in painting a picture of the Africa
that Josh encountered. I didn't just need to imagine it, I simply had to try
and capture it.
What was the craziest or insane
thing that happened to you in the book publishing process?
I was stuck at one
point, several months into the editing process, having felt like I had refined
the book as well as I was able to on my own, but not being able to afford a
professional editor to help me continue. Out of the blue, an old friend got in
touch and offered her services for free! It was an amazing and undeserved gift,
and one that made the book a million times better. Thanks Nicole!
How about the social
networks? Which ones do you believe help
and which ones do you wish you could avoid?
I'm on Twitter all
day. It's the best way to connect instantly with strangers and share thoughts,
links, comments without any sense of obligation to become "friends"
(as on Facebook). A Facebook fan page seems to offer this ideal as well, but
Facebook's algorithms actually make it very difficult to really engage your fan
base without paying for priority or promoting shamelessly. I want to be more
involved with Google Plus but unfortunately it's still coming into its own.
Book sales. Don’t you just love them (or lack of?)? How are you making the sales happen for you?
I saw great initial
results from friends and family members telling everyone they knew to go
support me and check out the book. Of course that slowly stalled out. I'm now
doing some actualy marketing via a blog tour hosted by www.pumpupyourbook.com
and I'm very excited about the results so far!
What is one thing you’d like to
jump on the rooftop and scream about?
Coffee and dark
chocolate!! My biggest weaknesses are actually the source of my superpowers,
just like Superman!
Okay, too much sugar for you
today! Here’s a nice cup of Chamomile
tea and come on over and sit under the cabana and watch the waves roll in. Now…can you tell us what you love about being
a published author and how all those things above doesn’t matter because it’s
all part of the whole scheme of things and you wouldn’t have it any other way?
It's true though, and
despite the small, occasional thrills of "Oh a person liked the book"
or "Oh sales were great today", the thing that lasts is the book
itself, and the fact that I did something I'd never done before and finished a
huge creative project. It gives me the strength to keep going, keep dreaming,
and keep creating.
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