Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing #YA author Paulene Turner. You can check out that interview here. I am a huge fan of Paulene and constantly impressed with her social posts, videos, and hard-core publishing schedule. So I sent her a message to ask if I could do a follow up interview to hear more details about how things are going. Thankfully she agreed!
What have you been doing since last we spoke?
I’m the author of The Time Travel Chronicles, a 6-book series in which the main character, 17yo Madison Bryant, travels to 5 different historical periods + the future. The story takes over 500,000 words to tell.
So, I’m a very busy person editing, proofing, uploading, promoting the first three books I launched during the second half of 2023 while, at the same time, preparing the final three for their launch dates on July 18, September 18, and November 10 in 2024.
I’ve got a real novel process line going on here. While book 4 is with the proof-reader, book 5 is with the series editor and I’m making final edits and gathering thoughts from beta readers on books 6. Being an indie writer of a fast-releasing series is never boring!
What comes after book 4?
Black Tides is book 4, as you know. 17yo Madison and Riley go to the Caribbean during the golden age of pirates in search of a rare pearl that powers the time machine. But they’re not the only ones looking for it.
I’ve spent a lot of time and energy promoting the pirate book, including dressing up as a pirate myself and digging up treasure on a local beach for my cover reveal! People love pirates and so do I. Is it the peg legs and eye patches? Err, no. The gold earring, the long boots? Possibly. Or is it the sense of adventure, without rules. Freedom! Yeah, that’s what it is. I have a gorgeous cover, designed by Holly Dunn of New Zealand. I’m excited about the release.
Next off the line is book 5, Samurai Steal. Set in Edo Japan, in the early 1600s, it’s a heist involving samurai and ninja, which was exciting to write.
Book 6, Point of Origin, is the finale to this epic adventure and involves a trip to the future to track down one moment/one event that can be changed to begin unravelling the harm done to the timeline and to Madison’s lovelife. It’s high-stakes, fast-paced escapist fiction, for young and old teens and adults who enjoy adventure, romance and history. With a cautionary message about unleashing powerful technology without proper forethought.
Can you tell us what a typical publishing day looks like for you?
At the moment, it starts with about an hour of posting on my various social media. This close to the launch (it’s 10 days away), I’m trying to build some momentum. Last week, I worked with two actors I know from the Sydney short theatre scene, filming scenes from Black Tides. We went to the local costume shop and got them dressed up fabulously as pirates. I wrote scripts and shot the lot on an iPhone in my backyard and at a local beach. It sounds amateurish and probably is. But the results are wonderful. The iPhone is a wonderful camera and does a lot of the work for you. So, at the moment, I’m spending most of my day editing film clips on Canva, which is such an easy system and an absolute delight to use. After that, I might sit down and write a newsletter, or a blog, or make some visual promo materials, before I begin editing book 6, re-reading it as many times as I can for typos and time travel logic!
Have you been working on any new materials?
I don’t have much time at the moment to work on new materials. But I do throw myself into a few competitions with the NYC Midnight to keep my hand in as a creator. Those weekends, with a time limit, and a set of prompts, are always pure torture. But when I’m done—as with all creations—it’s an enormous high and worth all the pain.
I’m also mulling over a detective series next set in Victorian England around Sherlock Holmes time.
Are you going to any book events this summer?
I’m delighted to say I will be at Book Fair Australia on November 2-3, with all six books! What a photo that will be for me to take! A life’s work, a life’s dream turned to reality right there on the table before me. If any of your readers are in Sydney, I hope they’ll pop by and say hi!
If you could give one piece of advice for a new author about to embark on a one or two-year series release, what would it be?
If you don’t find an agent or a publisher, don’t fret. You can still have a great experience as an author by self-publishing. Indeed, I love indie publishing as I have all the control. There’s a lot of technology around to support us, and gurus like David Gaughran who can help you understand the world you’re working in.
Only one piece of advice? If you can afford a good editor, cover designer and proofreader, do invest as they will be a great backup for you. But also accept help from other writers if they offer it. There are plenty here in the writing community with knowledge of all aspects of writing, who are happy to help.
So, why do you write?
Writing is a passion, a calling, a way of life. It’s easier to publish a novel now than ever with print on demand and all kinds of specialized services to help the independent author.
But finding a way to make your work stand out from the crowd is a constant challenge, in a world where we have fewer readers. We all have so many more distractions and choices for how to spend our time—our spare minutes on the bus, during lunch breaks, first thing in the morning, late at night. I look at my own children who’ve grown up with books. They’re reading a lot less than they used to do. Even I struggle to focus on reading if my phone is nearby. It’s easy to scroll away 20 minutes or so and miss out on reading time. None of which is good news for writers.
Also, the financial rewards are not great for the average indie and we cop a lot of harsh criticism from all directions. People can say terrible things about our books, with impunity, on Goodreads or Tiktok. They can rate them poorly with no need for justification. Plus a writer’s life of querying and working with betas and editors means we have to accept a lot more rejection and criticism than the average person. All of which is to say the wallet takes a battering and so does the ego. It’s a pain all writers share.
But for all that, there’s nothing quite like sitting at my desk as the sun begins to set, listening to music and watching the words flow onto the white screen. Especially when you feel a scene ignite under your fingers. If that is your jam—as it is mine—then the price we pay, the difficult burdens of our craft, are not too great to put up with. And when a reader tells you how much they loved your book, your characters, how it made them feel…well, I know then, I’ll be tapping away here for a long time to come. I can’t think of anything else that absorbs me and lifts my soul in quite the same way. And it’s something I can do even when I’m old, as long as my fingers can still scuttle, spider-like, across the keyboard.
I'm sure, after that amazing interview, you can't wait to dive into Paulene's next book! I know I can't. Oh, and make sure to follow her socials, her book scenes to films are brilliant!!
xo
S.E.
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