Episode 43: Writing, Publishing and the Successful Author Mindset with J.D. Barker

Angela Haas (00:17)
Welcome to Episode 44. I'm Angela Haas and I'm here with my co-host Cassie Newell. And this month we're exploring different perspectives in writing. Today we have an extra special guest, international bestselling author J.D. Barker. J.D. is, as I said, internationally bestselling author known for the fourth Monkey series, Dracul, co-authored with Bram Stoker's family.

and multiple collaborations with James Patterson. His breakout novel Forsaken drew praise from Stephen King and earned a Bram Stoker Award nomination. His latest novel, Something I Keep Upstairs, Chills, was released in May 2025 to strong acclaim. Barker's work has been published in over 20 countries and optioned for film and television. He lives in Florida and New Hampshire with his wife and daughter.

Welcome J.D, thank you so much for being here with us.

JD Barker (01:16)
Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Cassie Newell (01:18)
Yeah, so exciting to have you.

Angela Haas (01:21)
Yes, we are like, we Yeah. ⁓

JD Barker (01:25)
I was just saying

it's, 4th of July. We're all supposed to be outside barbecuing right now, not sitting in our offices on a podcast.

Angela Haas (01:28)
I know.

Cassie Newell (01:31)
I know. Dedication.

Angela Haas (01:32)
True. Dedication. We're coming, we're sacrificing our hamburgers and hot dogs to be here with you listeners. So, well, I want to dive into discussing a little bit about mindset because one of the things that you discuss is how we as authors need to think differently. And

JD Barker (01:34)
That's true. Okay.

Perfect.

Angela Haas (01:58)
I started this podcast because, or I wanted to start this podcast because I felt like I knew so many authors who get discouraged after publishing one book and they just quit. They don't have the resources to keep going because there's this, I published a book, now what feeling that comes over you and it can be kind of overwhelming. And the other reason I've heard authors quit is

And we were just talking about this this morning, Cassie and I, know, if there's stuff that's going on in the world around you that you feel like you can't control and we're feeling scared or overwhelmed and how do you keep those creative juices flowing? how do we need to think differently in the good times as well as the bad

JD Barker (02:45)
Well, I think the one world you actually can control is the one in your story, right? You know, it's, it's the only thing a hundred percent of your control. And honestly, one of the reasons I first got into writing is because it created an escape for me from the rest of the world. I'm autistic. I was diagnosed at 22 with the form of autism called Asperger's. but the first 22 years of my life, I had no clue what was going on with me. but the only comfortable place I had in my life was, you in the pages of a book in

Angela Haas (02:50)
Right.

JD Barker (03:10)
I've been kind of chasing that feeling ever since first as a reader and then eventually writing my own stuff. I think part of the problem, because I've seen a lot of people come and go in this industry. I worked as a book doctor and a ghostwriter for 20 some years before I started publishing my own books. To write a book, most authors are introverts, primarily. We're comfortable being 100 % by ourselves.

Angela Haas (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

JD Barker (03:33)
which covers 50 % of the, the author equation, because once you get that book done, all of a sudden you've got to sell that book. You've got to put your marketing hat on and all of a sudden you've got to become a type a personality that's willing to get out in front of a crowd on a, you know, on a wooden crate and start shouting about your book and in some unique fashion, because there's a million other people shouting about their books and you need to somehow stand out in that crowd. that can be very overwhelming for, for a lot of people.

You know, especially at the beginning, because there's, there's really, you know, there's YouTube things you can watch and there's other authors you can talk to conferences you can go to, but there's no real training for this. You know, we all just kind of stumble into it. We finish up the book and then we do that Google search. How do I market my book? You know, it opens up that door and then, you know, we go down the rabbit hole and we, you know, try 10 different things. Three of them work. You try seven more to replace the other ones. And some people are capable of, you know, going and going and going and other ones just get overwhelmed. And I totally understand both sides of that.

Angela Haas (04:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I had that feeling. but I think because I had such a support system and that's when I was in J Thorne's group and I had the ability to call on people and say, talk me off this ledge because this is too hard.

No one said this was going to be this difficult, you know? But I think it's because you feel like you're screaming into the void sometimes just to be seen. But the mistake I made was spending too much time trying to market, market, market, book one, instead of like keep writing and get more books out, you know?

JD Barker (05:02)
Yeah, I mean, you've got to mix it up. mean, I'm, I'm, just had my 10 year anniversary as a full time author. I, I honestly, I, when I published, Something I Keep Upstairs we did a release party here for the book and I was putting together a quick little speech and I thought I had 12 books out there. And then I looked at my Wikipedia page and realized I have 19 books out there. you know, like time just, just flies. I, I purposely segment my day in a, particular way. So I write full time. So not everybody can do this.

Angela Haas (05:07)
Wow, congrats.

JD Barker (05:28)
but I started seven o'clock in the morning. turn off the internet first thing. and I sit down and I just get the words. Cause to me, that is the most important thing I can do. You know, nothing else. If anything distracts me from that, the entire machine comes grinding to a halt. you know, so I knock out like two to 3000 words. I'm usually done with that about 10 30 or 11. Then I flipped the switch on the internet and my email box fills up with the business side of this.

you know, I knock out as much as those as I can, then I, you Wolfed down lunch really fast. And then in the afternoons, I spend that time doing stuff like this interviews and podcasts and talking to reporters, speaking to my agents, talking to foreign publishers. and I try to wrap it all up at three o'clock in the afternoon. That's when my quitting bell rings. one of the mistakes I made very early on is I would get interview requests. I'm in 150 different countries. So I've got, I think about 30 different languages or so. when that first started to happen, I would get these interview requests at

really odd times, you know, like two o'clock in the morning, 11 o'clock at night, to correspond with the time, you know, wherever this the book was. And I would take every single one of those, you know, thinking that I had to do it. And I was quickly realizing I was going to get burned out if I kept doing that. So in today's world, I force everybody to do these things before three o'clock in the afternoon, everybody that works for me knows that that's what I'm done.

Even my, my, you know, film agent in California, he knows he's not going to be able to reach me after three o'clock. So if he needs me for business, you know, he has got to call me before noon his time. ⁓ you know, you have to draw those kinds of lines in the sand, I think to stay sane and, also just to, know, to be able to do this on a day-to-day basis. Cause it can be extremely overwhelming.

Angela Haas (06:58)
Yeah.

Cassie, how do you deal with the when you were first feeling maybe the overwhelm of like, now what do I do? You know, you're not there now, but

Cassie Newell (07:09)
Yeah, I think I think what's interesting too,

is that you have to figure out what your balance is. Because I think when you're struggling, you also, you know, trying to make a name for yourself, just starting that first book, you just feel as you said, J.D, that you need to, because it's so important, you know, to try to get to that next level, that next step. But

what I found because I also balance a full time career outside of this industry as a lot do that, you know, it will come when it comes, you know, and sometimes I just think that we get very anxious about that. And I think once I step back and thought it'll get here when it gets here, you know, things happen for a reason. I'm one of those people that truly believe that and that I can

impact what that is, but only when it's in its due time. So I think saving my own sanity is certainly something that I needed to put barriers around and borders around of what I could and couldn't do. Am I the best at it? No, not all the time. But I do think it's interesting because J.D, I read somewhere that you said, you know, authors must dare to think differently.

And I kind of wonder, because you were talking about putting up your timelines of when you're working and what you're doing, which is scheduled. I'm just wondering, can you share a moment in your career that changed your trajectory of that? How did you get to that point? Was there something specific?

JD Barker (08:49)
⁓

Well, to put all this in perspective, you know, like I just said, I had my 10 year anniversary as a full-time author was back in November. so prior to that, I had zero people on my mailing list. You know, I had nothing published. you know, so was at the same starting point as, as everybody else, years and years ago, one of my first jobs, I worked for RCA records down in South Florida. and I had to get recording artists. would pick them up at the airport, get them to their concert, get them to their radio station.

Cassie Newell (08:54)
Sure.

JD Barker (09:14)
You know get them to their hotel do it was it was basically that movie Get Them to the Greek like that That was my life One one of the people I drove at that at that point was Madonna And at the time I was I was in college and to offset my student loans I you know realized I've got some very famous people in the car with me for a couple days at a time So I started to interview them and then I would sell those interviews to newspapers and magazines So that's kind of how I broke into the whole writing world

Angela Haas (09:17)
Yeah,

Cassie Newell (09:22)
Wow.

Angela Haas (09:36)
Wow.

JD Barker (09:37)
But one

of the things that Madonna told me that has stuck with me my entire life, we were talking about just album promotion and she was on tour for Vogue. She said that anytime she had a new album coming out, she would make a list of everything she sees everybody else doing to promote their albums. And then when she was done with that list, she would make another list of things nobody is doing. And that was the list that her people focused on when they promoted whatever she had coming out. And it was one of the reasons why she was always a standout artist. I

I call it zigging instead of zagging. So it's something that I have always done. so, you know, with flash forward to today's world, I just released a book called Something I Keep Upstairs It's about a haunted house. it's a real house that actually exists on a little Island off the Island where I live. and it's, you know, a real place. and I knew I could promote this book the same way everybody else does. I could buy Facebook ads, I could buy Amazon ads, I can do all of those things.

Angela Haas (10:04)
Yeah.

JD Barker (10:26)
but the one thing that I've learned over the years that really sells books is word of mouth. You need to get people talking about it. so for this particular book, with it being a real house, I decided I'm going to create a contest. So we created this, sweepstakes where people were allowed to enter for the chance to win an overnight stay in the haunted house. we're going to draw one name. They were allowed to pick three other friends and then we were going to take them out to this house. It's on a private Island. So you have to drop them off by boat.

Angela Haas (10:27)
Okay.

JD Barker (10:49)
We were literally going to leave them in a haunted house for 24 hours all by themselves. So that's how the contest was, was laid out. ⁓ and then we started promoting that and I got a ton of press, you know, a of newspapers talked about it. did some television spots talking about it. went on social media and everybody was, you know, chatting like I do it. Would you do it? I'll do it if you do it. I'm not doing it. But the point, the point is they were, they were all talking and all of that was free. to me as an author, you know, I've got to pay for the overnight stay.

Angela Haas (11:00)
Wow.

Cassie Newell (11:06)
Yeah. ⁓

JD Barker (11:14)
But in today's world that house it's a it's actually museum now They just finished renovating it and they've got kind of an Airbnb set up So like anybody can actually rent the house and stay there But you know, I took it upon myself to turn that into a contest that I could use to promote the book

Angela Haas (11:16)
.

JD Barker (11:27)
And that helps sell a of copies. So every time I have a release coming out, I try to do that. I look for some angle that nobody else is doing, you know, because the truth of it is, you you have one book and there's a million others all coming out the same year. You know, what are you going to do to stand out? That thought is always in my head.

Cassie Newell (11:44)
Yeah, dare to think differently. I love that. That is so yeah, that's inspirational, especially when you're hearing others tell you to really look at the books in your genre, right? Not to really deviate from the path. This is very refreshing. I love it.

Angela Haas (12:00)
Well, and...

JD Barker (12:01)
Well, it kind

plays out in just like all aspects. like if you take, querying an agent, you know, like every time an author

gets ready to query an agent, what do they do? They go on Google. What is a query letter? Give me the perfect query letter. And, and you know, those results always come back with basically the same thing. You know, you have to put your little description of your book. You have to put some stuff about yourself, you know, a couple of things, but it gives you a formula. And the problem is everybody follows that same formula. So if you've reversed that, if you talk to an agent, you know, like

I talked to my agent all the time, like when she comes in in the morning and she opens up her inbox, especially like on a Monday morning, she might have 300 emails in there. And if you think about your own job, and you know, if you do that, you know, what happens you read that first one, hit delete, you read the next one, you hit delete, before you know it, you're hitting that delete button, you're not even processing the information that you see. So I always tell people to try and come up with something totally different. To give you an example, a friend of mine, he works security in New York, he's literally a

Cassie Newell (12:37)
Mm.

Angela Haas (12:40)
yeah. Mm-hmm.

JD Barker (12:54)
paid security guy. like a diplomat comes into town, he's on the protection detail while that person is in the city. He wrote a book very similar to like a Jason Bourne type story. And he had that same formulaic query letter. So I changed it completely. I made his first sentence, I carry a gun in New York. ⁓ You know, so imagine you're you're you're an agent, you open up that email, that's that's going to put the brakes on things, you're going to read the rest of that message to try and figure out what it's about.

Angela Haas (13:11)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (13:12)
Nice. Yeah.

JD Barker (13:20)
⁓ It's just a couple of words, but it's enough to make him stand out and anybody can do that.

You just have to put a little brain power behind it.

Angela Haas (13:27)
That's really empowering too, because I feel like what, and maybe this is our segue into the difference between traditional publishing, self-publishing and hybrid, which I know less about. But I feel like as self-published authors, you know, we could try to be a little different when we're querying because we don't have anything to lose.

But I love that about...

daring to be a little different, especially when you're querying because you may face rejection. They may still not answer your email, but you put yourself out there and you tried and there's still options to get published. But that being said, for our listeners who may be just published one book and want to know what their options are, what is hybrid publishing? Do you think that's?

kind of the future and how does that different from trad and self?

JD Barker (14:24)
Well, I think what I call hybrid publishing might be different than what other people call it. So in my world, I'll give you an example. I've got a book called A Caller's Game was the first one where I did, did this. So every one of my books prior to that, with the exception of my first one had been traditionally published. but because I indy published my very first title, I kind of got a taste of what that was like. I saw the economic benefits, you you get roughly 70 cents on the dollar versus a trad deal. You're lucky to get 15 cents on the dollar.

Angela Haas (14:28)
Okay, yeah.

JD Barker (14:50)
You get way more freedom in every aspect, you know, everything from editing to your covers and the way the book is marketed, all those types of things. So because I understood what that was, when I got thrown into the traditional world, all of a sudden, all those, you know, rights were taken away from me. And I, know, I could weigh in on stuff, but you know, they kind of make you feel like, you know, if you change the cover, because you know, you don't like it, you know, they're going to use that against you later. If the book doesn't sell, they're going to say, well, we wanted to go with this cover you had us change it. That's probably why the book didn't work out.

Cassie Newell (15:18)
Mm.

JD Barker (15:19)
like they kind of give you that impression with literally every decision. They're the experts, you're not let them make those those calls. You know, but because I had a taste of being an indie, then I did the traditional stuff. With A Caller's Game I called my agent and I said, I'm going to go ahead and publish in English all the English territories on my own through my own press. And you can go ahead and sell to all the foreign territories like you usually do. And like I said, I was I'm in about 150 different countries. So she had a lot to work with there.

Angela Haas (15:25)
I

JD Barker (15:43)
that's what I consider a hybrid model. was indie published in the States and in Canada and UK. ⁓ but you know, like random house, it out in Germany, like that kind of thing. It's traditional publishers around

Angela Haas (15:53)
see.

JD Barker (15:53)
the world. So when I say hybrid, I say a mix of both. so I I've done, you know, both all these different models, indie published the first one straight up trad with a couple of the middle. Then I did this hybrid approach.

I, there was one particular hurdle that I couldn't overcome, you know, as an indie author, it's very difficult to get into certain places. You can't get into the bookstores very easily. You're not going to get into airports. You're never going to get into the big box stores like Costco and Target and Walmart. so I wanted to solve that problem. So about a year and a half ago, I reached out to some friends at a private equity firm that had recently bought Simon and Schuster. and I, I struck a deal with them and I ultimately created my own imprint at Simon and Schuster. So I have my own publishing house.

Angela Haas (16:09)
Mm-hmm.

JD Barker (16:32)
so I can put out what I want whenever I want, but Simon and Schuster handles my print sales and distribution. so I essentially in today's world, I get to act as an indie author because I can, you know, I've got all that freedom. but I have the backbone of one of the top fives behind me to get into those other places. So I think that's probably like the ultimate hybrid situation. ⁓ I think I'm the first to actually do that, but as far as I know, I, I can see a lot of these publishers signing other indie authors to similar deals, cause it makes sense for everybody all around.

Angela Haas (16:38)
great.

JD Barker (17:00)
you know, for an indie author and you're doing really well, you know, a tried publisher might come up to you and say, we're going to give you a million dollars for your next book. And that indie author might say no, because, you they know, they know the math. can make a million dollars in a couple of months. If I put out this book on my own, I don't need you to do that. but they're still not going to get it into those particular places. They don't have that distribution model. ⁓ so if they strike a deal somewhere to what I have, all of a sudden those doors open too.

Angela Haas (17:20)
Mm-hmm.

JD Barker (17:25)
publishing it, I really don't even think of it as like Indian trad anymore. I think it's all very fluid. It's all very muddy.

Angela Haas (17:31)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (17:31)
Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, because I think for a lot of our friends, we're hearing a lot of publishers coming to them now, seeing their success and either wanting to repackage their current book, take it off and re align it in sales. It's really interesting. And with direct

reader to sales too, which is quite hot now, you know, through Shopify and PayHip and all of these other options that indie authors are doing. I'm just curious, your thoughts to that, in the future, five to 10 years with writers, you know, doing their own publishing houses, direct to consumer, as well as trying to work with different publishing companies or

even Kickstarter, you will, trying to find new masses and new ways of delivering. Do you see any like future models there that will continue to expand? Or do you think there are short gains? I'm just curious.

JD Barker (18:33)
I honestly think they're all important. ⁓ you know, I, I look at all of these different things as just a, a ways to expand my audience. you know, so if I'm known traditionally or as a traditional author, you know, those, those books tend to go to one particular group. know, there, are people that will buy indie books and they'll buy trad, but, you know, there's certain ones that will only buy trad. if I, you know, then I look at something like Kickstarter, I could do a Kickstarter all of a sudden that's going to put me in front of this other.

Cassie Newell (18:49)
Right.

JD Barker (18:57)
you know, giant group of people that may not may or may not be buying my books. So that kind of expands my audience. You know, so every time I look at any of those, you know, Shopify is the same kind of thing. You know, there's a segment of people out there that, you know, like to buy books direct from the author because they know that they're that money is going direct to the author. So, you know, as an author, you know, the more of these different things you can do, I think the better. But you know, there's only what 27 hours in the day, so we can only spend so much time on each thing. So have to figure out what's working for you and what's not.

Cassie Newell (19:01)
Right.

Right?

JD Barker (19:24)
One of the problems that I've seen with a lot of those things is you can sell a ton of books on Kickstarter and direct and things like that But in the trad world, the only thing they care about is book scan numbers, you know That's the system that they use at bookstores to basically tally sales You know books that are sold through Kickstarter direct and you know, a lot of those other places aren't recorded through that So you may be making a ton of money on these different platforms, but there's no record of it on the trad side Which is only important if you're trying to get a trad deal

but you know, they, they, they look at those, those different things. You know, one of the things I do that really irks them is I print a lot of my books, in bulk. and I do it in different countries. you know, so I, you know, if I print, know, like I printed the UK to ship to the UK, because it's cheaper than if I print them in the U S and have to send them overseas, like that kind of thing. but because of it, I may have one hardcover book that has 10 different ISPN numbers, you know, because of the different print situations. you know, so again, when they try to tally that up, like it's a, it's an accounting nightmare.

But at the end of the day, I'm making a lot of money because of the way I've got that model set up. And to me, that's more important than how it's perceived on that side.

Cassie Newell (20:26)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (20:26)
Yeah, I, and this is, this brings me back to, you know, there are advantages to being traditionally published.

and I'm working now with a woman who's going through Jenny Nash's author accelerator. And one step of that is to pitch your book to agents and they help authors write a query letter. So I'm about to go through that process, but part of me, and I don't know, maybe this is crazy to think this way. ⁓ I don't want to wait. I've heard you have to wait like two years to get your book published.

And I don't know if that's exactly accurate, if that's a myth, but like, I'm really trying to build my backlist. Like I'm trying to get more books out. I'm trying to get that going. And I was writing superhero fiction. I'm now transitioned into romance because those are outselling the other books. So I want to build my romance platform. But if I get an agent and maybe possibly a trad pub deal, which would be

Incredible. I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. But part of me is thinking, gosh, then because I want to write other stories spin off of this one, I'm going have to wait. I'm going to have to put all that on hold. Right. Because doesn't the process take so long to get out there?

JD Barker (21:49)
I mean, the year to two years is not a myth. That's the truth. And it's mainly because there's a lot going on. You they've got, you know, you got to get the book finished, you know, formatting, editing and all that kind of fun stuff. But, you know, a lot of times they're farming it out to foreign publishers and, you know, it takes time to translate. Then they've got to record audio books and these, these foreign languages, all of that takes time. I always tell people they should query.

Angela Haas (21:53)
Yeah. Right.

JD Barker (22:12)
even if they don't go that route. And the main reason is I really don't think somebody should indie publish a title unless it's a book that like random house would be willing to put out. So I think it's important for everybody to query, you know, if you get a bunch of rejections, you know, try to find out why you're getting rejected. There's, there's a reason that they're turning down that book. And a lot of times it's a valid reason. you know, I think you can use that agenting process as a way to, to fine tune the material. You know, if you've got 10 agents all telling you that this one particular problem is wrong.

Angela Haas (22:21)
Yeah.

JD Barker (22:40)
you know, you can fix it before you put it out. What I see a lot of people do is they'll query a bunch of agents, they get a bunch of rejections, and they say, Well, I'm just going to indie publish, and they throw it up on Amazon, and they put it out there in the world. But they never address whatever that underlying problem was. And what ends up happening is that, you know, they get 10 or 15 reviews from their friends and family, all these five star reviews come in, then all of sudden, the real readers find it and they start getting these, you know, two star reviews and three star because formatting is terrible. There's grammar issues, there's this going on.

Angela Haas (22:51)
Right. Sure.

JD Barker (23:08)
know, dialogue has issues, whatever it is. All of these problems can be weeded out. I, so I think it's important to go through that, that model. one of the reasons why I bounce back and forth between Indy and Trad and what I'm doing now with Simon and Schuster is, you know, very similar to what we were just discussing with Kickstarter. Each one of those puts my book in the hands of different people. you know, if I, you know, if I write a book with James Patterson, and I know not everybody can do that, but we just had one called The Writer that just came out. debuted at number two on the New York times list and you know,

Angela Haas (23:32)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

JD Barker (23:37)
what ends up happening is a lot of people read that book and then they go, Oh, this was written by James Patterson and some guy named J.D Barker. Who is that? And all of a sudden they query me and I, you know, I see, I see my back catalog light up, you know, so all these new readers come in. So I use all these different things as ways to, know, to fill that reader pipeline.

Angela Haas (23:44)
gosh. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (23:44)
Right.

Angela Haas (23:57)
That's such good advice. So I actually just picked up The Writer for my husband. I'm going to read it next, but I'm reading Heavy Are the Stones. We don't have enough time because I have so many questions. Tell us about that collaboration process. It's almost actually not good for me to know you and Christine as I'm reading that book because I almost can't

Submerged myself in the story because I'm like, my gosh, is this which part is Christine? Which part is J.D? Is it together? Do you write separately?

Cassie Newell (24:27)
you

Angela Haas (24:29)
What is that collaboration process like? Because it's probably tricky finding the right person that you can collaborate. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (24:36)
Yeah, creative chemistry, right?

JD Barker (24:39)
I think it can be, see, I'm kind of a weird study case for this because I came up in the publishing world working as a book doctor and ghostwriter. did that for 23 years. So I basically spent more time working with other people collaborating with others than I actually have writing my own books. So when I sat down to write my first novel all by myself, like that felt weird to me, you know, to all of sudden not have a sounding board or somebody else I was working with.

Angela Haas (24:55)
Mm-hmm.

JD Barker (25:03)
⁓ in today's world, you know, I'm publishing a lot of co-author titles, you know, working with somebody like James Patterson. I've talked to him, not only, he's given me a ton of advice on the writing side, but also on the business side. so I'm bringing in co-authors and for heavy are the stones, know, Christine, know, she's fantastic. ⁓ for a lot of different reasons, you know, she's a neuropsychologist in real life.

You know, like if I've got a book that needs that particular element, you know, I can go on Google. I can watch some Netflix documentaries. can fake my way through it. Just like any other author.

Angela Haas (25:21)
⁓ huh.

JD Barker (25:30)
but having that authentic voice in the writing room with you, you can't beat that. so when I seek out coauthors, I always try to find people that have a skillset different from mine. one of the things I learned very early on though, is you have to figure out everybody's strengths and weaknesses. It's very similar to having two cooks in the kitchen, trying to make breakfast at the same time. If you're both trying to make eggs, you're going to trip over each other. But if one person is making eggs while the other one makes bacon, everything works out. So you have to figure out who's good at what and kind of divide and conquer.

Angela Haas (25:53)
.

JD Barker (25:57)
and every, you know, co-authored book that I've done, even like, you know, I'm, I'm on book six now with James Patterson. Like we, we have, I haven't really written this, you know, like with the same formula at once, like every, we have one where we went back and forth chapter by chapter. have another one where he gave me an outline. We've got another one where I gave him an outline. You know, it's just, we're all over the board with it. And I think it's mainly because that keeps it interesting. It keeps it fun. ⁓ but

you know, we, the two of us have collaborated with so many other people. We're comfortable enough in that wheelhouse where we can change it up.

Um, so, you know, if, if you are going to work with somebody else, you know, sit down and figure out, know, who's good at what and divide and conquer.

Cassie Newell (26:30)
How do you establish that trust? it you have those creative conversations and trust kind of in your ability as ⁓ a co-team?

JD Barker (26:41)
Yeah, I mean, it's, different again with, with everybody. So I wrote a prequel to Dracula for Bram Stoker's family. and I worked with Dacre Stoker who is Bram's great grandnephew. and you know, he came to the table, you know, with literally all this information on Bram Stoker. ⁓ you know, we, we talked, but like the problem that I ran into with him or that, know, what I initially discovered is he used to be a history teacher and he is very good at putting facts down on paper.

you know, he can outline a procedure and he's going to, everything is going to be extremely detailed, but it's very dry. It reads like nonfiction. Um, you know, so we decided very early on, I had to write the book and he would be there as a sounding board. you know, like if I needed to know what Bram Stoker's bedroom looked like when he was six years old, you know, Dacre was able to tell me that right down to the furniture that was in that room. So I had that particular information. I could work that into the text and make it seem that much more real.

you know, we could have just approached it just like any other project. He could have written some, I could have written some, maybe I go back and clean up his text to make it sound like mine. Um, there's a million different ways to do it, but it, you with that project, it was easier for me to write the book and him to be there as a, you know, a fact checker and data provider.

Cassie Newell (27:44)
nice. So then you align with a shared vision of who's doing what in that division of labor, so to speak. That's really great. How many how many

JD Barker (27:52)
Yeah. mean, it's,

it's, it's, it's still a collaboration, I guess, is what I'm getting at. It's just, you know, you, don't have to be doing the, you don't both have to be writing, you know, sentence by sentence. It doesn't have to match out 50%, 50 % in order for it to be a collaboration as long as, know, it's, it's no different than any business. You know, you may have 50 people working there. They're all doing something that's equally important to get to that, that end result.

Cassie Newell (27:55)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (27:56)
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Cassie Newell (28:13)
Exactly.

Yeah, agreed. That's great.

Angela Haas (28:17)
Yeah, I'm sure though, I mean, there was a couple, this was a long time ago, I tried to do a collaboration with different sci-fi authors and that didn't work out

when there's too many differences, and I feel like if people don't have the same work habits, that's tough to conquer. what advice could you give someone that

knows the collaboration is not going well or maybe this if this is too not aligned this probably isn't gonna work. Do you have advice? I can speak to that.

JD Barker (28:53)
I

mean, I think you're gonna know pretty early on if it's not working. You know, I think you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone too. If you approach the project and you your mind is you're not willing to try something different, that's going to be a problem. Now I'll give you an example. The very first book I did with Patterson, we sat down and we brainstormed and we had lunch down in Palm Beach. And I was a pantser. I'm guessing your audience all know the various terms. So I was a pantser. He is a very hardcore outliner

Angela Haas (28:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Cassie Newell (29:18)
Yes.

JD Barker (29:21)
for every book he writes probably a 30 to 40 page outline. So obviously total, you know, total different camps coming into this particular project. And I didn't think we were going to be able to work together because I didn't feel like budging and he didn't seem like he wanted to do anything different. So we kind of walked away from that. A couple of months later, he called me back and he said, you know what, let's try it your way. Let's let's pants a novel. So I'm the only guy to ever get James Patterson to pants a novel. So I

Angela Haas (29:24)
Wow.

wow. my gosh. Wow.

JD Barker (29:45)
I would write a scene, would paint him into some kind of, you know, crazy impossible scenario thinking he's never gonna get out of this. And I would send him the pages. 15 minutes later, he'd not only got out of it, but he wrote me into an even more difficult situation. And we wrote the whole book that way, going back and forth. And like, that was fun. It was fun. It was fun for him. It was fun for me. But you know, when you pants a novel, you end up with a lot of, you know, what I call just like words on the cutting room floor, because you're kind of feeling your way through that story. So you have to go back through it. You've got to take a lot out and fine tune it.

Cassie Newell (29:57)
Ew.

I love it.

JD Barker (30:15)
So we probably, I think we wrote maybe 160,000 words. We probably cut 60,000 out of the end book, you know, which is a lot of work. So we finished that up and he's like, okay, we tried it your way. Let's try it mine. So he sent me an outline and we wrote our next book based on that outline. And I saw just how smooth that process was and how much faster it went and how much easier the editing went at the end. So ultimately he switched me. I outlined everything at this point.

but the, moral of this story is, know, like he was willing to step out of his comfort zone. This is James Patterson, the number one bestselling author in the world. He was willing to try something a little different just to see what happens. ⁓ and I think every author needs to approach, you know, collaboration or any project with that same mindset.

Angela Haas (30:38)
Wow. ⁓

Cassie Newell (30:54)
I love it. It sounded like dueling authors a little bit. Who could outdo the scene or the chapter? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's great. I love that. think Angela and I too, when we put together this podcast and co hosting, you know, we had to kind of work through a lot of things too, on how how we were going to try things and do things because Angela is definitely a pantser

Angela Haas (30:57)
Yeah, the dueling pianos.

JD Barker (30:58)
It was, but yeah,

but that's what keeps it fun, you

Cassie Newell (31:23)
I am not. So we have, you know, different sides of the coin to on on a couple of things. But she's also great at romance, which I don't think she wanted to know right off the bat. But anyway, it's really interesting. That's really great.

JD Barker (31:24)
you

Angela Haas (31:41)
Well, I think that's good advice and it's you kind of got to know when to fold them too. You know, sometimes we fight for the things that we're like, no, but I'm really passionate about this. But I think if you're willing to give out of that, you know,

It's amazing that you were able to come back together and say, let's try because then out of that came an incredible collaboration that's produced masterpieces and, and probably challenged you and helped you grow as an author too, because you were pushed a little bit to learn a different process. And now you're outlining more, which did you ever think you were going to outline?

JD Barker (32:22)
No, but I mean, you when I sit back and

think about why this works better, you know, there is no right or wrong to any of this. You have to figure out what works best for you. I mentioned that I quit working every day at three o'clock. I live on a little island in New England and I go for a run around that island. It's a little over four miles. And I use that time to think about what I need to work on the next day. So when I was pantsing at a novel, I would spend that brain power thinking about what comes next, what comes next, what comes next.

Angela Haas (32:43)
Yeah.

JD Barker (32:49)
now that I've got an outline in front of me, I basically use that same brain power to figure out how do I make what comes next better? You know, how can I fine tune it? you know, so ultimately I ended up with a tighter story. ⁓ you know, but again, everybody is different. I, I enjoy pantsing novels too. I, I'm writing multiple books right now at the same time. I've got a couple that I'm pantsing and I've got a few that I'm working on based on outlines.

Angela Haas (33:00)
Yeah.

JD Barker (33:10)
you know, so I think you just have to pick and choose, you know, the particular method.

I change stuff up all the time. Like I've got a book I'm writing longhand. I've got, can't really see it, but there's a typewriter down there in the corner. I've got another book that I'm physically typing on a typewriter. And I find that by using the different mediums, my voice is different. You know, when I write in longhand, it's a very, very personal first person type voice. Writing on an old fashioned typewriter, you know, it's an old broil, know, clunks and, you know, with the keys and nice and noisy.

Angela Haas (33:18)
wow. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (33:28)
interesting.

JD Barker (33:37)
Um, you know, I'm writing a noir,

you know, like a detective thriller on that, because that just feels right for that particular device, you know? So I'm always trying new things.

Angela Haas (33:45)
The

question is, would you try a romance? You do, you have romance elements and that you do.

Cassie Newell (33:46)
I love that.

JD Barker (33:49)
I would love to be able to write a romance, but I'm just not that good at it. Like I can include romance elements. I read a lot of romance, you know, which yeah, I mean,

Cassie Newell (33:56)
Mm-hmm. You do have romance in elements.

Yeah.

JD Barker (34:00)
like I, I talked to, when I talked to, know, particularly mentoring students or aspiring authors, I always tell them to read outside their genre. ⁓ you know, re read sci-fi, read romance, you know, cause literally like romance in particular, like it will work in any story. You can write a sci-fi novel that's got romance. You probably should.

Angela Haas (34:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

JD Barker (34:17)
⁓ you know, it's one of those elements you can pick up on. if, if you decide I'm going to be a thriller author and you're only going to read thrillers, know, you're kind of handicapping yourself.

Angela Haas (34:24)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Cassie, you have a really good question about what you wish more people would stop believing.

Cassie Newell (34:26)
Yeah, agreed. Agreed, agreed.

yeah, I was gonna ask because I know J.D, you wear many hats, right?

You've talked business strategist being a writer, a collaborative writer. And I was just curious, what's one myth about being a successful author you wish more people would stop believing in? That's a myth or a farce.

JD Barker (34:51)
Ooh.

Angela Haas (34:53)
Yeah.

JD Barker (34:53)
I mean, I think the way they're perceived in television and movies, you know, they always show an author like sitting in a cabin somewhere, they're pounding out their pages, and they're printing them out as they go on this little stack

Cassie Newell (35:00)
Yeah.

JD Barker (35:03)
rises, then they drop it in a box and send it off to their agent, and then they're done, you know, like until the next book. You know, that that's not the case. And you know, it's not like that for anybody. I've gotten to know some very, you know, famous authors. I know Dean Koontz really well. And I remember about two or three years ago.

Cassie Newell (35:07)
Yeah.

JD Barker (35:19)
He had been sent, I think it was 400,000 book plates that he had to sign for one of his titles. Book plates are basically blank pages. And then they fold those into the hardcover. When you send them back, it took them two weeks of signing papers. like the guy was literally like, felt like he was going crazy as he was doing it because he started playing, you know, like a random soundtrack type thing. Then he focused on Paul Simon. Then he focused on just the Graceland album. He was just playing that.

Angela Haas (35:45)
Mm-hmm

JD Barker (35:45)
⁓ then it was one particular song from the Graceland album for like two days straight. ⁓ you know, like this is Dean Koontz He's one of the biggest selling authors in the world, but he's got to take the time to do that. You know, if you sit down, you know, go to a conference and talk to, know, some big, you know, name author that's there. They're, they're all doing podcasts. They're all doing interviews. They're

all writing, you know, blog posts. They're all, you know, all we're all doing all the things.

Angela Haas (36:08)
Yeah, no, I've watched, Romancing the Stone is one of my favorite movies. And it's the same way, you know, she pictures the movie in her head and she has her headphones on and she pulls the final page out and she's crying and I'm like, that's what I want to do. So I kind of had that in my mind, like, that's it, and you send it to your editor, right?

Cassie Newell (36:24)
Ha ha ha!

JD Barker (36:24)
you

Angela Haas (36:27)
No, that's not how it works. What I was going to ask you as we're sort of winding this down is you celebrated 10 years. That's a huge accomplishment as a full-time author. What would you tell your past self who's just starting out? Like one thing, if you could go back in time and be like, ⁓ when this happens, do this instead, go this way instead, or do you

Cassie Newell (36:28)
Yeah, sure.

Angela Haas (36:55)
Or would you do that? Do you have anything you would tell your past self?

JD Barker (37:00)
I think the one thing that I'm still trying to tell myself is I need to learn to say no. Yeah, because I get asked to do a lot of different things and I tend to say yes to just about all of them. And before I know it, you know, like I'm on a plane trip going around the world and you know, I'm in some foreign country for, you know, a week or so. And yeah, I mean, it sounds great until you actually do it.

Angela Haas (37:05)
yes.

my.

Cassie Newell (37:20)
You

JD Barker (37:21)
You know, you don't, you don't have to do all these different things in order to succeed in the business. You know, you have to pick and choose your battles. so yeah, I would probably tell myself to say no a little bit more often.

Angela Haas (37:32)
Yeah, my business background is, we've owned retail brick and mortars for 30 years. And I was a book buyer and a merchandiser and a manager for 10 years of those until I owned my own store. But the power of no is something I actually used to,

Cassie Newell (37:33)
Great

Angela Haas (37:51)
to my trainees about because sometimes we say yes to everything we become yes people we think that yes gets us through the door and I even learned that mistake as a writer just saying yes thinking that if I turned down something someone was asking me to do ⁓ that I was closing a door on an opportunity so I spent money I probably shouldn't have signing up for things that I'm not sure really helped me and

I spent time with people I thought were gonna like, if I network with this person, then they might introduce me to this person and maybe that's opening a door for me. I'm always about building your network and strategically doing that because that is part of it. We can't write in the wood cabin by ourselves. We do have to have a community. Yeah, but I sometimes aligned myself with people that.

Cassie Newell (38:40)
It's not a solo activity.

Angela Haas (38:46)
I found out later weren't their authentic selves, weren't really who they said they were. And then I spent time and money. So the power of no really actually can help you in your career. but I think sometimes as beginning authors, we don't know what to say yes to and what to say no to, you know?

JD Barker (39:06)
yeah, I think it's important for especially new authors to take some time to research whatever it is they're getting into. cause in, this world, it's very easy for somebody to do something nefarious. know, people can say they're an agent, know, they can create a website and, know, put a couple of graphics up there. All of a sudden they're an agent. All of a sudden they're a small publisher. All of a sudden they're, you know, they're selling this, this course or whatever it might be, you know, figure out who's behind that particular thing. Research that person. It's easy enough to do.

Angela Haas (39:19)
and

Right.

JD Barker (39:33)
You know, if, if, if it's a failed author, you know, somebody tried to publish a couple of books on their own and they didn't work that well. And all of a sudden they're selling coaching services or something weird. you know, take, take a step back and decide, is this the person I really want to learn from? Um, you know, I've purposely reached out to, know, some of the biggest names in the industry because, know, they're there, they've done it. and they will talk to you, know, and you can pull the biggest name author aside and, know, they remember exactly what it was like to, write that first book.

those particular struggles and they will reach out to helping hand all day long. I have yet to run into somebody who won't. ⁓ you know, so if you're going to ask the questions, if you're going to try and get advice, make sure you're getting it from somebody who's reputable, somebody who can help get you to that next level.

Cassie Newell (40:06)
Yeah.

It is a little intimidating though J.D to reach out. ⁓

Angela Haas (40:17)
You ⁓

JD Barker (40:18)
It is, but you know, like I, I don't

shy away from it. I have never been afraid to ask the question. I would much rather hear the word no from somebody else than to walk away from a situation knowing that I didn't ask. And you know, what could have happened? I don't like to think about that.

Angela Haas (40:26)
Right.

Cassie Newell (40:29)
Mm. Yeah.

Angela Haas (40:32)
Yeah, no, I

Cassie Newell (40:32)
Yeah, agreed.

Angela Haas (40:33)
mean sometimes you don't have anything else to lose if someone says no you're right back where you were But they may say yes, and then you're on a whole new trajectory so that I think that's just important for all the listeners out there listening to this like Seeing what's possible because I think sometimes when you publish your first book you don't see far enough down the road that it is a long game you're playing the long game and

Cassie Newell (40:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

long game. Yeah.

Angela Haas (41:01)
You have to be smart in your business. And I like that I should have done more research before I said, sure, even though this is way too expensive, I think this is going to be really good for my career. I needed to like almost think on it for 24 hours. Becca Syme says to do that. before you purchase anything, stop, do some research, sleep on it. And you still feel strongly about it. Go ahead and do it. But I think this.

Interview with you is gonna help listeners who may be feeling discouraged or feeling like they can't do it or feeling like Okay You know, how do I wade through these muddy waters? So we just appreciate you taking time out of your insanely busy life and your schedule which is fascinating to come and talk to us because you're gonna you're gonna change someone's life who's gonna listen to this and think

Cassie Newell (41:55)
Yes, thank you so much.

Angela Haas (41:56)
I can do it, I'm gonna keep going. mm-hmm,

absolutely. Yeah, so we have one more thing to do and that is our Table Topic question. This has nothing to do with writing. This is an actual game that gets conversations going. So I think this is an appropriate one. Can you do weird tricks with your face or body?

JD Barker (41:59)
I hope so. I appreciate it.

Wow. No, not that I know of.

Cassie Newell (42:23)
Can you do weird tricks with...

Angela Haas (42:24)
This is an

untapped area for you then. I can wiggle my ears. can't. there they go.

JD Barker (42:25)
Kid you? Yeah.

I have never been able, I can't even blink, like

I can blink one eye but not the other eye. Which I guess is weird.

Angela Haas (42:36)
How about this? Can you do

Cassie Newell (42:37)
interesting.

Angela Haas (42:37)
this? Can you do this? Okay, there it is.

Cassie Newell (42:39)
Yes, totally. Yeah. I can roll my tongue and when I was younger, my sister hated this, but I'm really, I'm really dexterity dexterity with my with my toes, such that I can like grab things and pick things up. And I used to pinch her calf really hard.

JD Barker (42:42)
Kinda, kinda maybe.

Angela Haas (42:55)
ambidextrous? ambidextrous? ⁓

JD Barker (42:57)
ambidextrous.

Cassie Newell (43:07)
but she would irritate me. But you know, there was a big age difference.

JD Barker (43:10)
I guess if I have

that, I've got a weird skillset. Cause when I was really young, I started off being left-handed. Um, and back in the seventies, that was kind of taboo. So my mom forced me to use my right hand over and over again. Um, which, you know, in today's world, I can write with my left hand. Like I could use my left hand for a lot of the things that most people could only use their dominant hand for. Um, but you should never do that to your kid because I'm pretty sure he causes other, other problems, but.

Angela Haas (43:19)
⁓ Ooh, yeah.

Cassie Newell (43:21)
That was.

Angela Haas (43:35)
Yeah. Gosh.

That would be...

JD Barker (43:38)
Yeah, back in the 70s,

were very particular about that.

Cassie Newell (43:40)
I remember that.

We're 70s babies. I remember that. had a friend that they would push them to write with their right hand. Yeah.

Angela Haas (43:41)
Yeah, we're Gen X. Yeah.

And see, I was always trying to be different. Like I always was trying to write with my left hand. I was like, how cool would I be if I could just write with my left hand? Now that didn't go very far. I kind of gave up on that, but I was like, what if I could do both? That's gotta be a skill that's needed. But well, thank you so much, J.D, for taking time and for joining us today. was an absolute pleasure I know I learned a lot from talking to you and I know our listeners will too.

Cassie Newell (44:00)
You

Yeah.

Angela Haas (44:16)
And thank you everyone else for joining us today. Don't forget to give us a review or rating wherever you listen to the podcast. It really gives us a lot of visibility. Next week, new month. Since the days are getting colder, we're going to have another month of hot topics to warm us up. Until then, keep writing, keep doing. We'll see ya.