Apr 5, 2018
The smooth and sexy-toned Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling
thriller author, with books available in hundreds of countries
worldwide. With a long-standing career in film, television, radio,
and podcasting, Kevin is a seasoned world traveler, and has
produced documentary programming and films ranging from historic
aviation to military history. His debut novel, a thriller, and the
first in his Dan Kotler Archeological Thriller series was
a 2016 Shelf Notable Indie award winner.
Kevin's love for history, archeology, and science has been a
tremendous resource for his writing. With thrillers, science
fiction and genre-crossing books, including the non-fiction books
the 30 Day Author and Writing
a Better Book Description, Kevin has more than 30
novels, novellas and stories under his belt.
Kevin is also the Director of Marketing for Draft2Digital, one of the most beloved and
author-centric distribution platforms for independent authors.
He lives in Texas, but works in random coffee shops, cafés, and
hotel lobbies around the world.
In the pre-interview introduction to this episode, Mark shares a
few updates that include:
- How T S Paul (from Episode 13) ended up doing on
Kobo in March as well as his continued growth (well ahead of the
normal slow curve for sales growth on Kobo)
- His training (or lack thereof) for the end of April Waterloo
half-marathon
- His rediscovery of the love of writing short fiction (and the
#FreeFridayFrights he launches this
week)
- A thank you to the latest Patreon supporters of the podcast
- This week’s Terrible Tongue Twister, AKA “Twisting by the Fool”
– this time done in the voice of the guard from the French castle,
as played by John Cleese, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
In their chat, Mark and Kevin talk about:
- The fact that Kevin was always a writer and how Kevin wrote his
very first “book” when he was five years old
- The early dictation that Kevin did with a cassette tape
recorder when he was a child (dictating his own versions of the
Encyclopedia Brown mysteries)
- His introduction to reporting and journalism in high school and
his first professional earnings as a writer ($10 per column)
- The “nice advance” with a “terrible contract” that Kevin signed
early in his writing career and then made the tough decision to
leave, and pay back that advance
- The Vimeo and YouTube web series Kevin and a few friends had
planned, and how that story turned into a novel
- Kevin’s move from writing science fiction and into thrillers
and how that led to his best-selling and award-winning novel
- Kevin’s goal to get 12 books in total written in the Dan Kotler
series by the end of 2018
- The pattern of alternating between writing novels and short
stories that Kevin is considering
- The basic minimum daily word count goal that Kevin sets for
himself. (It is currently 2500 words)
- How, regardless of what’s on his plate or calendar, that the
writing for Kevin comes first. (As in, the very first thing that he
does in the morning)
- Stephen King’s quote about Art or Writing being a support
system for life (and not the other way around)
- The genesis and desire behind Kevin’s creation of the Wordslinger
Podcast
- How inspiration for writing and creativity can come from any
source, or virtually any conversation, not just from authors and
writers
- A bit of a background on Draft2Digital and Kevin’s role as
Director of Marketing at this author-centric company
- How the “caring about the author” was something that always
stood out the most when Kevin was initially looking at
Draft2Digital as an author himself
- How working at Draft2Digital has opened a lot of additional
doors for Kevin
- The automated in-matter and the amazing Book2Read offering that
Draft2Digital provides to authors, book bloggers or anybody who
wants to create a universal book link that connects to everywhere
the ebook is sold online (including the ability to add affiliate
codes for Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, etc into those links)
- The newly launched Author Pages that Draft2Digital has recently
released, which connects back to the Books2Read content
After the interview, Mark reflects on something that Kevin
mentioned, which was PLAN vs PROCESS, and the importance of having
a flexible process. Mark spends some time thinking about how
focusing on the process rather than the initially failed plan has
benefited him in multiple ways in his personal life as well as his
recent attempt to evolve into a full-time writer.
Mark spoke openly about the process of transitioning in more
personal detail on Episode
77 of the Inner Dominatrix Podcast, with host Dana Pharant back
in December of 2017 (while he was in the midst of the latest
transition in his life)
Mark also shares that he was recently a guest on Patricia
McLinn’s new
AUTHORS LOVE READERS podcast, where he and Pat had a fun time
talking about the story behind the story of writing, where
inspiration is found and other reader-centric questions about the
writing life.
Links of Interest