Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Southern California and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics awards for directing. As Tom’s career grew, he directed and co-produced the world tour of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”. The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by over a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale corporate event productions that included Harley Davidson, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes, and dozens of others. The Siren’s Scream is Tom’s second novel that follows up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest.

Tom’s latest book is the mystery/horror, The Siren’s Scream.

Visit his website at www.thomas-white-Author.com or connect with him at Facebook.

On Writing…

 I have found that the greatest motivating factor for me to write is boredom. That is absolutely true. It started with two events that occurred simultaneously in my life back in the early ‘90’s. First, I began traveling a lot as a corporate event producer/creative director. That meant many hours on a plane. The second event was the release of the Macbook. The Macbook allowed me to pass the time on a flight by writing. And I did. My perfect flight soon became getting my upgrade, having a glass of wine, opening the laptop and go! My first published work was my first novel, Justice Rules. I have since published a second novel, The Siren’s Scream. The learning curve has been very rapid for me. I took several online novel writing courses through UCLA and I highly suggest something like that. It turned my whole technique around. I learned that the most important element of writing, is writing. It’s important to write every day because then you have something to change. You can change something; you can’t change nothing. I also discovered that I am not that great a writer, but I am a suburb re-writer. Once I see something on the page, I can easily see what’s wrong and make changes. Usually, my 5^th or 6^th re-write is when it becomes viable.

On Being Published…

My goal with being self-published was to see my book on the shelf in a bookstore. To walk down an aisle and see my novel, sitting there among all the other books was awesome for me. It was a long, long road to get to that moment but so well worth it. Because I have been self-published my sales and financial rewards have been minimal but there is great satisfaction to me knowing that I accomplished something and being able to answer that question, “So what have you been up to?”, “Well, I just published my second novel.” It’s very cool and when you’re not approaching any best seller lists, it a source of great satisfaction. I had moderate success with my first novel, Justice Rules, a murder mystery set in the Pacific Northwest. I sold about 3,000 copies and was a finalist in a literary contest. Eight finalists out of 2,800 submissions. My second novel has just been released, The Siren’s Scream. It is more horror/mystery than murder mystery and is about a haunted pool in the backyard of an old, dilapidated mansion.

On Publishing Industry…

Publishing is a very frustrating experience, at least it is for me. When you believe in your work, get positive feedback from the correct outlets, and end up with a stack of 73 rejection letters, it is disheartening. The publishing world publishes a fraction of the submissions they receive every year and so many fine authors are left out of the equation. Self-publication allows these very worthy authors an outlet to get their work out there. But there is also a great responsibility in self-publishing. In the publishing world there are editors and agents to make sure the highest levels of professionalism are met. In self-publishing that all falls on the author. I strongly suggest that if you self-publish you hire a professional editor to review and correct your work. Your aunt who teaches 7^th grade English is not who you want. This is a service that you will have to pay for but it is vital in maintaining that quality we so desperately deserve. The wonder of self-publishing is that authors who deserve to get out there, can. The downside of self-publishing is that anyone who wrote 60 pages about their summer vacation can also get out there. You must distinguish yourself from the others with your professionalism and attention to detail.

Mistakes Along the Way...

 Mistakes, I’ve made a few, but then again, too few to mention. But seriously, sure, my second novel, The Siren’s Scream, I hired a service to get the book published. Their pitch was that they would edit the book for grammar, punctuation etc, format the book for online publication, design a book cover, build a web site and maintain that web site. Overall, I was tremendously disappointed in their performance. I did get a nice web site, that I ended up mostly designing myself, but the other services were horrific. They would send me edited chapters and I would go through them, make changes and send them back. Those changes were seldom incorporated correctly. Re-writes were never placed properly. The book cover they presented was drab and lifeless, I had to re-design that as well. It took almost 4 months to get through the entire process. I am still requesting that they fix things on Amazon that have never worked properly. The upside to all of this is that I can now do most of these things myself. Word editing programs are plentiful but I will still hire an editor to help me with story and plot. You’d be surprised some of the things you do without realizing it, such as losing a character. You need someone to say, “What happened to Bob? He just disappeared.”

On Marketing…

The secret to a successful real estate buy is location, location, location. The secret to writing success is marketing, marketing, marketing. I use all forms of social media to promote the books. I have a web site that promotes myself and the books. There are dozens of online services that will promote your book for a fee and I have had decent success with those. Pump Up Your Book is the one I am currently using and I like this very much. I have gotten myself invited to be interviewed on podcasts and radio shows. I offer a service through my web site where people can get an autographed copy. I post something about my novel at least 3-4 times a week. I continually check sites such as Goodreads, All Author, and many other online sites that are looking for books to review and talk about.

On Goals and Dreams…

My goal would be to be successful enough as an author to make a living at it. I have several friends who have had varying levels of success. One is a huge write in the science fiction field who has a house in La Jolla and another who writes for the young audience and has just published his 22 novel. One is wealthy the other makes a living. My sights are set on making a living. Anything that comes after that would be gravy. I’m currently just plugging away. Like in so many things I am one reader away from huge momentum. I believe in my work and have gotten very positive feed-back from reviewers I don’t know and that is truly satisfying. When one of my books falls into the hands of the right publisher or critic, I can generate great momentum and start really moving on up. 

   As to aspiring writer’s I will say that writing a novel is the hardest thing I have ever done. To think that I’ve now done it twice amazes me. The process is long and grueling and you have to be prepared to fail, fail, fail and then take a small step toward success. I always tell young writers the same thing. Write every day! Write something. If it sucks, so be it, you don’t have to use it, but that one paragraph that you write that sheds light on the entire story is so very satisfying. As I said, you can change something, you can’t change nothing. Secondly, you don’t get to stand behind the reader as they read and explain what you meant. If a reader is confused by your story, it’s not because they are stupid, it’s because you did a bad job of describing what’s in your head. When you have someone read your stuff and come back and say, “I didn’t understand what chapter 4 was about.” It means Chapter 4 is not written well and you have to fix it, it does not mean there is something wrong with the reader. Learn to accept criticism and listen to what they have to say. Nine times out of ten they are right in being confused. You then have to fix the problem.