Running The Bases With Joe Jackson
Running The Bases’ guest this week Joe Jackson. How cool is that? (For those who don’t know, Shoeless Joe Jackson was one of the greatest player ever and I love that his twitter handle is @shoelessauthor. This must be what nerd heaven is like.) What make’s this even more timely, pitchers and catchers report for spring training this week. Baseball is about to be reborn for 2017!
Joe’s epic fantasy series, Eve of Redemption, saw a fourth installment released last month with Legacy of the Devil Queen.
So round the bases with Joe and then leave a comment when your done. One lucky commenter will win an eBook of their choice from Joe’s backlist.
Your series has big expansive world building. What is one big tip you would give to authors when world building?
Make it immersive!
Even if you’re going to write a book that takes place on a post-Apocalyptic Earth, make it a place the reader gets lost in. Describe the sights, the sounds, the smells, and let them get lost in its history and grandness. Take them to this other world and show them why it’s so vastly different than Earth, and yet so familiarly similar. In Fantasy, people don’t have Google Maps and GPS. Just crossing the grasslands to go to a town four hours away is a big deal, especially if your world is full of monsters and dangerous hazards. Authors need to make sure the reader feels that, and then a simple cross-lands journey can be as exciting as a twelve-page sword fight.
- Your book covers are really eye catching. What is your process in choosing the right cover to match your story?
The original covers were designed to depict moments from the stories themselves (which I’ve since heard is supposed to be some big no-no). Readers could flip back to the cover and see a rough portrayal of a moment from each book.
The new cover for Salvation’s Dawn was redesigned to better catch the reader’s eye using eye contact and character engagement. The key was to get the potential reader to connect with Kari before they even learned her name. Salvation’s Dawn does have a bit of buildup (AKA boring description to some) as you learn about Kari and her world, so it’s important to make you care enough to read about her and the mission she’s about to undertake.
- List three things you can’t do without on a daily basis.
Superhugs from my daughters when I get home from work, the love of my wife, and a brainstorming session involving an MP3 player and some quiet time. Music is my muse.
- We know you’re a big gamer. What are some of your current favorites?
Believe it or not, my wife and I still play EverQuest after all these years. We get bored of it and take breaks, but eventually end up coming back for short stints every so often. We were both avid Skyrim players, put a ton of time and effort into running a raid guild in World of Warcraft a few years back, and have dabbled in several other MMOs (Elder Scrolls Online, EverQuest II, even tried our hands at D&D Online). These days, the kids keep us limited to one game really (aside from practicing bass using RockSmith), so right now EQ has our game time monopolized.
I used to be a huge FPS fan. When I was in college and had the luxury of being foolish with my time, I’d have many a Deathmatch marathon in Half-Life til 6am.
Find Out More About Joe:
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Twitter: @shoelessauthor
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Good world-building is always impressive. (Yeah, I did do a double-take when I saw the Joe Jackson name, perfect symmetry there! Of course, if Joe wrote books about British new-wave singers, that would startle a whole other audience…)