Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason McGathey.
Hi Jason, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, for as long as I can remember. Though it took years to get anywhere even remotely successful, knowing this helped simplify my thought processes regarding what to do with my life.
This hasn’t exactly been the most lucrative choice I might have made, but I think you do need to just follow your interests, whatever they are if these are truly what you are passionate about. In more recent years I’ve begun helping some friends bring their projects to light, too, which has been equally satisfying.
Interestingly enough, though this had nothing to do with my reasoning at the time, I also think that skipping college entirely has helped me forge a unique style and develop some different strategies, none of which would have happened if I took a more codified, established route. No matter how bumpy or chaotic, this has proven itself as 100% worth the journey.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Developing a network beyond just friends and family is by far the largest hurdle. Unless you are talking about dealing with a ton of rejection in the early going – which becomes only maybe half a ton later. But it gets easier when you realize it’s best to just tune everyone out, and go around the naysayers.
Because you are going to hear, and this is probably true of most endeavors, especially if attempting to chart your path, that this is a huge waste of time and you will never get anywhere. One thing I’ve sort of figured out, though, is that if you’ve put a ton of thought into something, and it still seems like a great idea to you, yet everyone else tells you you’re crazy…keep doing it! You are probably onto something!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Like so many other authors here in the 21st century, I found myself unable to draw any interest from traditional publishers. In fairness to them, this was surely the correct call then, regarding the quality of my early work. Self-publishing was just opening up at that time, though, and print-on-demand books, which helped open the door, before the whole e-book thing even came around.
So far I have published 8 books in a handful of different genres, and I feel it’s safe to say the last 4 have been better on average than the first 4. I’m proud of these more than most of the others, as well as a few different websites/blogs that I tinker with regularly – Love Letter To Columbus, which is an ongoing history of Ohio’s greatest city, and A Known History, which is more about my family and personal experiences, and then also just my regular old author blog.
But as far as what sets me apart, I think having a different viewpoint and NOT going through the customary channels has been huge. Also, for some reason, as virtually every writer knows, you go through these early phases of just imitating others. Then eventually realize, if you stick with this long enough, that you are plenty weird on your own and if you just be yourself, then that is going to make your work fairly distinct by default.
You also learn to just keep marching and not get hung up on any of these projects for too long. There are several famous sayings that hammer home this point, such as “published is better than perfect” and “the best way to promote your new book is to write the next one,” and I’m a big believer in those. We don’t even always have the best perspective on what’s good and what isn’t, anyway.
I can say with complete seriousness and without any snobbery that my two worst books have for some reason been the two best-selling ones. It could be complete randomness, or it could be that these are the ones that connected with people best. Who knows? I think you just need to focus on doing what you like and try to make it as good as possible, then move on, and everything else will sort itself out over time.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
It’s hard to say if this will happen, but I would like to see the production capabilities move to where I’m able to take what I’m doing on a website or blog like my Love Letter To Columbus project – which might not look all that amazing yet, though I have a lot of ideas on getting there – and transport those to an actual physical object that people can interact with. Which isn’t an app, but it’s more than just a book. I think that would be fascinating, to have these out there in the world.
Pricing:
- 99 cent book downloads (PDF form, from my websites)
- Fairly standard rates if buying physical/ebooks elsewhere. I do tell everyone to go through Barnes & Noble instead of Amazon if buying a physical book because it’s cheaper yet the POD quality is higher. I’m not a big fan of running sales, because I don’t feel like it increases your numbers any, and you might as well collect full price when someone does buy your book.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lovelettertocolumbus.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonmcgatheyauthor/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jasonmcgatheyofficial/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasonMcGathey
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2cbALcWKg_E4viry6IPpRQ
- Other: https://jasonmcgathey.wordpress.com
