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Robert Howell on Writing & Publishing | What’s Kraken Interview
13 Plays15 days ago
Jo gets local—and real—with author Robert Howell in this surprising and heartfelt episode of What’s Kraken. From childhood storytelling to publishing paranormal thrillers, Robert shares how a single rejection letter helped shape his 50-year writing journey. They dive into the origin stories behind Blood Mansion and Blood Castle, the quirks of self-publishing, and the minefield of indie publishing contracts. Robert talks candidly about staying grounded through the highs and lows of book launches, the importance of research in fiction, and how his kids helped him re-enter the writing world. Plus, how a haunted-feeling property and a real-life “wind phone” inspired his creepiest books yet.
KEY MOMENTS:
- Opening riff – Jo’s playful intro: “Today… I could just touch your house if I want to, Robert!”
- Guest’s big insight – Robert on keeping his first rejection letter for 50 years to remember the next step will be better.
- Behind‑the‑scenes moment – How Robert’s idea for Blood Mansion came from visiting a creeped‑out empty property during his job in property‑management.
- Personal story – Transitioning from sci‑fi short stories as a teen to a young‑adult urban fantasy novel and then into self‑publishing.
- Why it matters – The broader takeaway: writing is a long game, publishing contracts matter, owning your rights counts—and dreams don’t expire.
👉 Books mentioned: Blood Mansion, Blood Castle, A Devil of a Time
👻 Themes: ghosts, witches, horror grounded in reality, self-doubt, perseverance, and writing as survival
🖊️ Find Robert at: storywriter.ca or @StoryWriter on all the socials
🌐 And don’t forget: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell
We are Amazon Affiliates—if we use an Amazon link and you click or buy, we do earn money.
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Transcript
Intro
00:00:08
Jo
Everyone, Joe here, and today's What's Crackin'. It's a weird one for me because usually I interview people across the galaxy, and today with Rob Howell, I could just touch your house if I want to, Robert, I think, so.
00:00:24
Jo
Yeah? Welcome to the show.
00:00:26
Robert Howell
Thank you.
00:00:27
Jo
Yeah, for those that don't know, and you should, Robert is someone who is a let's say experienced writer of both short and long fiction, correct?
00:00:41
Robert Howell
Correct.
00:00:42
Jo
Yeah. So how did you get into writing?
00:00:44
Robert Howell
It's been in me since I was a kid.
00:00:46
Jo
Yeah.
00:00:46
Robert Howell
i remember when I was like five, six years old, I used to tell my parents stories that they used to always laugh about them. So I started having to write them down.
00:00:52
Jo
Really?
00:00:55
Jo
Oh, there you go. Absolutely. So you started to have the stories in your head and you started talking them out and then
00:01:01
Robert Howell
yep
00:01:04
Jo
Trend just in that way, huh?
00:01:06
Robert Howell
Yep. i I remember too, I about 12 years old with a friend, we started writing a novel together. Unfortunately, we moved and the novel got half finished and I never got the other half.
00:01:16
Jo
Oh, wow. Do you ever think like one day you're gonna see like the other half appear in your mailbox and go, Oh my gosh, the other half of my novel.
00:01:23
Robert Howell
I actually tried to reach the ah guy over internet a few times, but I could never find him.
00:01:26
Jo
really Oh, that's unfortunate. Facebook brings you everything and but what you want, what you watch really. It's like a monkey's paw. The internet's monkey paws.
00:01:34
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:01:36
Jo
So when you first started writing, what genre was it? I'm just curious.
00:01:40
Robert Howell
I started writing sci-fi, science fiction.
00:01:43
Jo
Got it.
00:01:44
Robert Howell
I actually submitted my first story when I was 17 to, I think it was Galaxy Magazine.
00:01:47
Jo
Oh,
00:01:49
Robert Howell
No, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, which no longer exists.
00:01:50
Jo
well.
00:01:53
Robert Howell
I still have a copy of that rejection letter to this day.
00:01:56
Jo
Do you really?
00:01:58
Robert Howell
Yep, and that's almost 50 years ago.
00:01:59
Jo
the what What kept you going? Why did you keep the rejection letter? Curious.
00:02:05
Robert Howell
You know, I once saw a story a long time ago about this, and i forget, I don't even remember who the writer was, but he was telling about that, and he said he always keeps his rejections, writers, to remind him that the next step will be better.
00:02:12
Jo
Yeah.
00:02:19
Jo
that's interesting. That is interesting. And as a writer, how did you take that first rejection? and Because you get the letter back in the day, you actually got like a letter letter, right?
00:02:30
Jo
Yeah.
00:02:30
Robert Howell
Yeah, because that back in the day, you had to set it in handwritten copies and stuff like that. there's no computers. And I had terrible handwriting.
00:02:36
Jo
Yeah.
00:02:37
Robert Howell
So I was wondering at the time if that had reflection of my handwriting, not the story.
00:02:41
Jo
Oh my gosh. you never And that's the thing, you never know. this our This current generation, ourselves included now, we don't have to go through the send it through the snail mail.
00:02:55
Jo
Print this out and then send me a manuscript. You might get it back. Remember, we we had to put like stamps, self-addressed stamp envelopes if we want to reply. Yeah, if you want your manuscript back, like, well, that's ah that's a big chunk right there.
00:03:08
Robert Howell
Well, that was even into the 2000s, my first novel, which was published in 2007. I had to send the manuscript by mail to Saskatchewan.
00:03:16
Jo
Really?
00:03:16
Robert Howell
That's where the publisher was.
00:03:18
Jo
Oh my gosh. What was your first novel called?
00:03:21
Robert Howell
It was called Third Times the Charm. It was a young adult urban fantasy.
00:03:24
Jo
Yeah.
00:03:27
Jo
So you spread out from sci fi, the young adults will say why a urban, right? What was that?
00:03:32
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:03:32
Jo
What was the transition there? What was that like?
00:03:35
Robert Howell
it was It was more, the define this the story didn't start as supposed to be a fantasy. I had this idea my head to write a story about a young girl who was in an orphanage and it was adopted by a rich family.
00:03:48
Jo
Oh,
00:03:49
Robert Howell
But it seemed like the characters to took over it themselves and she ended up in a rich estate in Toronto or just outside Toronto in the Niagara Peninsula and met her two cousins who were also orphans and And when they get there, they find out that not only the part of an old rich family, they were also at ah part of a community of witches.
00:04:11
Jo
wow.
00:04:12
Robert Howell
And that's basically the story took off from there.
00:04:12
Jo
That's kind cool.
00:04:17
Jo
That's amazing. It's a it's a way to do the character-driven story, right? You have the idea for a plot and you put them through the paces and the character's like, no, we're going to go this way for a while.
00:04:27
Robert Howell
Yep. It took me on a tangent.
00:04:29
Jo
I was
00:04:29
Robert Howell
I wasn't expecting it all. And that was before I'd ever read my first Harry Potter book.
00:04:33
Jo
going to say, it sounds like the old Harry Potter. if If you see the movies, you might blink and miss it. But in the books, Harry's very wealthy in the wizarding world. He's like beyond rich.
00:04:45
Robert Howell
Yeah, well, he only knew about his richness when he became 12 years old and was accepted into Hogwarts.
00:04:45
Jo
yeah
00:04:51
Jo
Yeah, Hogwarts, yeah. But before that, he was always treated as poor. And in the book, I mean, the movies, he's still kind of treated as poor-ish. You know, he's not as affluent as the books were. So when you're making these transitions and you see this, does that affect your word count? I'm guessing YA has got a lot different word count than sci-fi, right? Or fantasy even.
00:05:11
Robert Howell
and well Well, the young adult was really, a lot of it came because at the time I had four kids.
00:05:16
Jo
Oh.
00:05:16
Robert Howell
So i was not only writing writing like that novel, I used to write short stories for them. So every holiday, they got a short story where they were the heroes.
00:05:25
Jo
That's nice.
00:05:26
Robert Howell
I still have a copy of most of those on my p-drive here.
00:05:30
Jo
Did you ever think about putting those out?
00:05:33
Robert Howell
Not particularly, but lately my publisher I spoke with, they're doing a magazine Christmas magazine, and she's asking me if I wanted to contribute something because it's supposed to for cooking and stuff like that. we said I said, well, I have these stories I wrote for my kids.
00:05:48
Robert Howell
And she said, love your writing. Please send me one. So I'm going to think of which one I'm going to send them. Yep.
00:05:52
Jo
Oh, that's sounds's very cool. and's very ah ah Writing can be a very small world. You meet connections and then you don't know where one connection will take care the next time, right? You have no idea.
00:06:00
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:06:02
Jo
So when you're doing a story, ending story, not exactly for the ones for your kids, do you write with the intent of this is going to be published?
00:06:13
Robert Howell
The ones where my kids know, but everything else, yes, I eventually hope they get published.
00:06:15
Jo
Right.
00:06:17
Jo
Right.
00:06:18
Robert Howell
and And that's why when I do my writing, I also like to research everything.
00:06:23
Jo
Okay.
00:06:24
Robert Howell
So and to me, and research is a very important part of my writing. So for example, when I wrote Blood Mansion, I researched every aspect of the book. So in the book itself, it starts off with these two teams.
00:06:34
Jo
Right.
00:06:36
Robert Howell
One's from a a paranormal television station. You know, they do a show about ghosts and one, ghost hunters type of thing.
00:06:43
Jo
Right.
00:06:43
Robert Howell
And the other team is supposed to be a real investigative unit, a legitimate one. So during that time, I actually reached out to legitimate paranormal investigators.
00:06:53
Robert Howell
And I kind of connected with one in Los Angeles.
00:06:56
Jo
Oh, cool.
00:06:56
Robert Howell
And he actually gave me all the tips that are actually in the book on how they do their investigations.
00:07:02
Jo
That's amazing.
00:07:04
Robert Howell
And I actually had the pleasure of meeting him at last month.
00:07:07
Jo
Oh, yeah. Very good. Do you talk about the book? Like, hey, this is all based upon, you know. Yeah.
00:07:12
Robert Howell
Well, actually, I told him all about it ahead of time. And when it came out, he went and got a copy himself.
00:07:17
Jo
Awesome.
00:07:18
Robert Howell
And he actually wrote a nice review about it.
00:07:18
Jo
Amazing.
00:07:21
Jo
And that's, again, we don't know where we're going to go with our next connection. And if you really want to, and I'll have to give them a plug right now, SIPA is going to be, they're they're the paranormal of investigations out of Ottawa.
00:07:35
Jo
And they have the same thing, the scientific, let's see what this really is. Science. You know, this is a scientific investigation versus like the, oh my gosh, it must be a ghost because it goes like this. Like, no, no, that's just TV.
00:07:48
Jo
That's just trying to sell.
00:07:48
Robert Howell
But that's exactly how he does his investigations. But I liked about when in his review, he he's worried wrote it, while reading this book, I realized that if these things happened to me in real life, like they happened in his book, I'd be a believer.
00:07:59
Jo
Yes, exactly. Exactly. It takes one step away. So your books are grounded in research, which is important. I believe i believe research is important. And then you have your imagination part of it, right?
00:08:13
Jo
Did you ever lean on the side more of imagination sometimes, even the research says something else?
00:08:13
Robert Howell
yeah
00:08:18
Jo
You're like, no, it's still fiction.
00:08:21
Robert Howell
Well, a lot of it is still fiction. Like the whole story is obviously fiction.
00:08:26
Jo
Right. Right.
00:08:26
Robert Howell
But even like the characters, the ghosts in the book are based on on real people that existed.
00:08:32
Jo
hi
00:08:33
Robert Howell
so So all of the the serial killer ghosts that are in the book, if you actually were to look up their names, you'd find out that what what I said about them actually it did happen.
00:08:43
Jo
And that's an interesting way of learning.
00:08:44
Robert Howell
So it adds little bit of reality to it. So people, they they think, could this really have happened?
00:08:46
Jo
Yeah.
00:08:49
Robert Howell
You know, give that a little bit of of reality into the fiction.
00:08:53
Jo
I think that's a good hook. It really is. And it makes people learn while they're reading. which is an amazing skill to have. Like it is really, if you can write a book that makes people learn, even though they're not cognizant maybe what they're learning, especially for anything that can be historical, like the serial killer, right?
00:09:02
Robert Howell
and Yeah.
00:09:10
Jo
Like that some subset.
00:09:12
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:09:13
Jo
Have you, yeah.
00:09:13
Robert Howell
Like, for example, the Blood Castle that's coming out, there I combine a lot of the paranormal with actually science. and And all of the science that's in the book, I actually researched to look up, see what was plausible and what's not.
00:09:29
Robert Howell
So the things that weren't really plausible, the guy that's doing the analysis and everything says, I've never heard of this.
00:09:29
Jo
Yeah.
00:09:34
Robert Howell
It can't be possible. But then the other stuff, they realize that, hey, this is real life.
00:09:39
Jo
yeah That's very cool. When is Blood Castle coming out?
00:09:42
Robert Howell
It came out September 23rd. Is that now available?
00:09:44
Jo
What? way three 23. 23. That's right. So its September 23. And when you're doing a book launch, especially nowadays, you know, back in day, I'm guessing you would go to a different Barnes and Noble or what would the Canadian be chapters in to go Reno bra, you know, I can't pronounce that as an American Reno Reno brain.
00:09:59
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:10:04
Jo
How do you say how do you say that one?
00:10:05
Robert Howell
Right now, bro.
00:10:06
Jo
ra I always say Reno bra and people like what? My accent comes out really thick and they think I'm talking about laundry. Okay. No. Got it So when you're doing these, do you do like a tour now or do you do like the, the call in the blog tours instead?
00:10:23
Robert Howell
Most of it so far has been either blog tours or online.
00:10:27
Jo
Right.
00:10:27
Robert Howell
I did get a chance at the beginning of this month. My publisher invited me to an event for the Emmys where they do a gifting suite. you they They invite it mostly the B actors or some of the background producers, writers, and they come to this gifting suite.
00:10:43
Jo
Right.
00:10:45
Robert Howell
They do a red carpet event. So I was actually interviewed on the red carpet about my book too.
00:10:50
Jo
Oh, very cool.
00:10:50
Robert Howell
And then I speak to all these people, and i and some of them I've even been kept in contact since then.
00:10:56
Jo
It's amazing.
00:10:57
Robert Howell
So even they're trying to promote my book for me too.
00:10:59
Jo
so It goes to show you if you are a good person and you can be personal, people will take that into consideration and connect with it. People want to do good things for other people. They do.
00:11:12
Jo
I think inherently they want to. It's a lot of times that we get in our own way. So how do you not get in your own way? Because sometimes that happens, right?
00:11:19
Robert Howell
Well... My first problem is I'm quite a bit of an introvert. So getting myself out there for me was already a challenge.
00:11:27
Jo
Right.
00:11:28
Robert Howell
And part of the job I had to do while I was there, I had to do interviews like I'm doing with you, except I was the interviewer. And a couple of them I really messed up at the beginning. And then people laughed and said, please leave it. I want to see that blooper later.
00:11:40
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:11:41
Jo
Exactly. Everyone gets so polished in these interviews. it's Sometimes it's okay to make mistakes.
00:11:47
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:11:47
Jo
It's the human part of us. you know I think I can't wait to see everything coming out. So when you have this great event and you're riding high on this energy, like the for those of you who have never released a book, it's a bit weird at one time, at least for myself,
00:12:07
Jo
As an author, i have the most fragile eagle because I'm like, am I good enough? Is this going to hit? Is this going to miss? And then the most biggest eagle because you want everyone on the planet to read it.
00:12:18
Jo
So these two eagles are kind of like fighting each other. How do you ride that high of a book release and then try to come back down to write your next book?
00:12:31
Robert Howell
I'm fortunate. I'm usually pretty level person.
00:12:33
Jo
Good. All right.
00:12:34
Robert Howell
So I try not to let the highs get too high. i keep myself relatively balanced. But sometimes the lows are tougher. Like when I saw the first sales for but Blood Mansion that came out, and I said, with all the work I just did and whatnot, I only sold a few dozen copies.
00:12:49
Robert Howell
It was like, that was a low.
00:12:51
Jo
Right.
00:12:52
Robert Howell
That was harder to come up from than the high of coming coming down.
00:12:56
Jo
I think it can be disheartening sometimes to see sales or to see who. I'm not sure who's going to watch this one, but I did a research on.
00:13:11
Jo
cozy just cozy mysteries so like the cat like the cats were solving mysteries but the cats were solving drug deals it was bizarre and this this series had like 300 books in the series and like five bazillion stars on amazon i'm like how how and it was like very the guy basically printed out of his basement somehow it just took off in the 90s like huge and then you know We're writing, that you write Blood Castle or Blood Mansion and you're like, 12, two dozen, 24, the first day or whatever. It's be damn, how did that happen? you know
00:13:46
Jo
So how do you get beyond that?
00:13:49
Robert Howell
You just have to work your way through it. for me For me, I just go back to writing. I do i find something else to write.
00:13:53
Jo
don't know.
00:13:54
Robert Howell
I write another book, whatever I get into.
00:13:57
Jo
Did you ever try a series that you're like, okay, this is a series and the first one just nopes. The first one's like, damn I'm just not getting this one.
00:14:07
Jo
Do you keep with it then?
00:14:08
Robert Howell
Well, the first book I ever published was The Third Time's a Charm. After five years with a publisher and not a single penny of royalty was sent to me, I took back their rights.
00:14:19
Robert Howell
Since then, I've written two more books in the series, and now there's three books in the series I've published on Amazon, and I plan on writing more because it turned out just it's it's more of about supernatural detective series, kind of like a cross between the Hardy Boys and and Harry Potter.
00:14:22
Jo
Right.
00:14:31
Jo
Yeah.
00:14:35
Jo
Nice. Very cool.
00:14:35
Robert Howell
And my three young witches use their ability to solve supernatural mysteries.
00:14:39
Jo
Brilliant. That sounds brilliant. And then you said you had it out for a while with an indie publisher, I'm guessing, and it didn't sell. And then you, did you write them for your rights back saying, hey, listen, it's been while.
00:14:51
Robert Howell
Yeah, i write i got I wrote the rights back and I got it in writing so I could never have a problem later.
00:14:57
Jo
Very, very cool. Some people... Some people don't know you can either sell your rights to a publisher, meaning you never get them back, or you lease them for a certain amount of time or certain conditions are met for a while. and they could you know Or the contract itself is only good for two years, three years, whatever it's going to be.
00:15:14
Jo
And then some publishers just say no. And it's kind of like you hear the the horror stories and the musicians, you know like I sold my so first song catalog, $2 for it. And they can't get them back.
00:15:26
Jo
Have you ever worked with a publisher that you just could not get your stuff or could not get the point across or just didn't turn out well for you?
00:15:35
Robert Howell
I've avoided those because I read the contracts first.
00:15:38
Jo
There you go.
00:15:39
Robert Howell
I received one contract for, like, I have a book I'm going to put out myself probably in November.
00:15:39
Jo
or
00:15:43
Robert Howell
This would be an adult or urban fantasy called The Devil of a Time.
00:15:48
Jo
Okay.
00:15:48
Robert Howell
And I had a couple of offers from publishers, and one of them I read through the contract. And once I saw at the end that basically they take everything over and they'll pay me if they want, I just basically ripped up the contract.
00:16:00
Jo
Yeah. And that's more common than people think.
00:16:03
Robert Howell
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And a lot of them you get what they call the hybrids where, oh, you've got to pay for the cover. You've got to pay for the editing. You pay for everything. And then you'll start see royalties that the book sells.
00:16:16
Robert Howell
But you still have to do as much marketing as they're going to do for you.
00:16:19
Jo
And that's the weird thing about some of the hybrids. i'm like i I know some people who use a book service where they will pay for the cover because they want the cover, especially when you put it yourself. Basically, you're putting out yourself. so You're paying for the illustrator. You're paying for the typeset. I'm cool with that.
00:16:36
Jo
It's the ones where you just paid for everything. and then And then if they want to give you a royalty, I'm like, I just paid for everything. I should get everything. If I pay for everything, I should get everything.
00:16:47
Robert Howell
yeah
00:16:49
Jo
There's no royalty. It should be all of it.
00:16:51
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:16:51
Jo
You know?
00:16:52
Robert Howell
If you see a contract that's like that, if they're paying for everything, they better be paying you royalties. And if you're paying for everything and they're not going to pay you royalties or it's it's ambiguous, you might as well just self-publish yourself through Amazon.
00:17:03
Jo
Yeah.
00:17:05
Robert Howell
It's fast, it's easy, and it's inexpensive.
00:17:07
Jo
Yeah, absolutely. and it And it stuff you can just go to like Readsy and get like an editor, you know, Book Whisperer and get like covers and editing done. Longer the days are gone where there i guess there are some still abusive publishers out there. I've seen some really the bad contracts like ah We're buying, so we're buying, we're getting rights for first print English rights.
00:17:33
Jo
Duh. Sure. I get that. Translations. Do you guys translate? No. Then why you getting my translation rights? Audio. Do you have audio books? No. Then why are you getting my audio book?
00:17:43
Jo
You know, why am I getting all future, all future discovered technologies not yet on this planet throughout all time?
00:17:53
Jo
I'm like, no. Like, why? why what Why would you even ask for any of this stuff? you know, you get locked in then. So you have to really read those was publishing contracts hard. And when you first got your first book published, your first publishing contract, did you read it through? or were you just going, yep, where did I sign?
00:18:13
Robert Howell
Actually, i went one step further. I had a an acquaintance I knew who was a lawyer and had him go over it for me.
00:18:20
Jo
Yeah. Smart move.
00:18:22
Jo
Very smart move.
00:18:22
Robert Howell
And he said, it's a standard publishing contract.
00:18:26
Robert Howell
You're not going to get anything better at and anywhere. So that's what I went and signed it.
00:18:30
Jo
Yeah, standards probably probably said a limited run whatever it's going to be if it sells as much or if it's ebook versus hard or paperback, whatever it's going to be.
00:18:36
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:18:37
Jo
And yeah.
00:18:38
Robert Howell
which is why i was able to get their rights back because there was a clause in there that there was no sales royalties in a certain period of time.
00:18:40
Jo
yeah
00:18:44
Robert Howell
I had the right to ask for the the the rights back.
00:18:46
Jo
Revert. Absolutely. And that's the only way to do it. You never, unless you're a ghostwriter, then you kind of sell it away your life because it's not your story at this point, but you should always own your own stuff. I know someone who against, against everyone's advice, went to a vanity publisher who published a book, no input on the cover.
00:19:08
Jo
did a completely horrendous, in my opinion, typesetting job. The editing was trash, in my opinion, again. And she had to pay them 10 grand. 10 grand Canadian.
00:19:22
Jo
And she had a sign to sign and write all her rights to her life story. So she could not make another thing that's on based on her life because she signed the contract. I mean, it's it won't stand up in court because the contract's trash too, but...
00:19:39
Robert Howell
yeah
00:19:39
Jo
They're still out there. It's amazing. 2025, you're right. Pay an editor. Pay someone to make your cover. Go to Amazon. Done.
00:19:49
Robert Howell
and say well I mean, I found a nice, to on Instagram, I found a nice artist that that did my cover for a Devil of a Time coming out.
00:19:56
Jo
There you go.
00:19:57
Robert Howell
It cost me like 600 bucks.
00:19:59
Jo
but Brilliant. That's actually pretty decent.
00:20:01
Robert Howell
And she did an amazing job.
00:20:02
Jo
Yeah.
00:20:02
Robert Howell
I told her what I wanted.
00:20:02
Jo
Yeah.
00:20:03
Robert Howell
She put it exactly the way I wanted it.
00:20:05
Jo
Yeah. There's so many artists like on Insta, I used to go to DeviantArt and just kind of like surf through there. Insta's pretty big too on that, honestly. Anything that's going be image-based, you're right.
00:20:17
Jo
Ask them. Give them an email. Worst thing do is say no. Or they'll give you a price test, price style, and theyre just like you go on to the next one, right?
00:20:25
Robert Howell
yeah
00:20:25
Jo
So when you're doing this, what was the first what was the year you first did a book? What was the first book year-wise?
00:20:34
Robert Howell
Yeah. In 2007, that was a third time's a charm.
00:20:37
Jo
Okay. I think I did mine in 19... I'm dating myself now. Like 1999 or something or something like that.
00:20:49
Jo
So we've both been in the game for a while. Over 20 plus years, right?
00:20:52
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:20:55
Jo
We've seen things change a lot. Were you allergic to e-books? you know, like there don't be defiprint. You can't do e-books. Yeah.
00:21:03
Robert Howell
Absolutely, no, I thrive on e-books because I read an average of book a week, and there's no way I could keep that many books on my shelf.
00:21:07
Jo
yeah
00:21:10
Jo
and that Exactly. it i can take my entire library with me right now.
00:21:15
Robert Howell
yep
00:21:15
Jo
And the thing I can throw as like a Frisbee versus all the books on my shelf that are just going to if you move. Oh, my gosh, it's a pain in the butt. No, absolutely. I love it. Did you ever see things where you thought the technology or thought that you could do something, but maybe the technology for printing wasn't there yet, or maybe the technology for ebook formatting or something that was technology based that of held you back?
00:21:43
Robert Howell
I never really came across that because as the things evolved, it was actually my kids that encouraged me to get into the new things as they evolved.
00:21:47
Jo
Yeah.
00:21:49
Jo
Cool. Very cool.
00:21:51
Robert Howell
So is is when when when I took back their rights to to Third Time to Charm, it was my daughter who told me, look, we're still trying to find it another the publisher. Why don't you just self-publish on Amazon?
00:22:03
Robert Howell
And she she she told me how to go about it.
00:22:03
Jo
Yeah,
00:22:04
Robert Howell
And that's what I went and did.
00:22:06
Jo
yeah they already have it edited and covered. You might want to do a different cover depending on the edition, depending on Amazon's, you know, gets cranky sometimes.
00:22:12
Robert Howell
yep
00:22:15
Jo
Why not? Absolutely. So when you're doing Blood Castle, walk me through it. Do you get the idea of just walking around or does it kick around your head for a while?
00:22:24
Robert Howell
what I'll start with Blood Mansion first, because that was the first book in the series.
00:22:27
Jo
Okay.
00:22:30
Robert Howell
And that I got into that because of a real life event. my regular job, I used to do property management. and and And the properties that that I used to have to go over were properties that our company had repossessed.
00:22:43
Robert Howell
They were mostly empty. And there's one property I went to and I had to go there every week. It was like an hour and a half drive away. and every time I went it there, it gave me the creeps. I don't know why.
00:22:53
Robert Howell
There's nothing that special about it, but it gave me the creeps.
00:22:56
Jo
Yeah. Right.
00:22:57
Robert Howell
So was in the office telling some of the people in the office about it one day. And one of the girls there who knows I write said, well, don't you write a book about it? And all of a sudden the ideas came and I started putting notes down and they started writing things.
00:23:10
Robert Howell
And then I said, you know what? i I need to get some, some information. So I started watching that show ghost hunters at night to see what they use.
00:23:14
Jo
yeah
00:23:18
Robert Howell
And I actually looked up online. They, they sell their equipment on online, you know, their equipment. And of course I use their equipment, but I modified it to to make it work.
00:23:24
Jo
right
00:23:28
Jo
Very cool.
00:23:29
Robert Howell
And at that blood mansion only took me six weeks to write. it just It just flowed right through.
00:23:33
Jo
Really?
00:23:36
Jo
That's an amazing pace. I feel like a big slacker now.
00:23:39
Robert Howell
So that led into blood kind now how Blood Castle came was first the the first publisher that actually told me they wanted to print to write my book told me they interest my book but only if I change the title.
00:23:48
Jo
Right.
00:23:52
Robert Howell
Because the original title of the book was The House That Peter Built. Because the main character, the ghost, was Peter Vanderbilt.
00:23:59
Jo
Right.
00:23:59
Robert Howell
So he told me, he said, look, he said, yeah, it sounds nice, except if you're writing a horror book and your name is Stephen King, that title will work fine. But nobody knows you as a horror writer, so they're going to think it's a drama or a comedy or or romance.
00:24:11
Jo
Right.
00:24:13
Jo
Right.
00:24:14
Robert Howell
So umm and I said, okay, let me come up with a new name. I agree. I'll change the name. and Driving around, and one day we're just driving driving the girlfriend we're just driving along the lake shore, and his thoughts are through my mind, and all sudden, why not Blood Mansion?
00:24:27
Robert Howell
So I raced back to the house. I looked online and there was no book titled Blood Mansion. So I immediately sent that to the publisher. And in two minutes, he said, okay, I've got the ISBN for it already.
00:24:39
Robert Howell
He loved it so much. And that was when I ah came came up with the idea for a sequel.
00:24:40
Jo
That's amazing.
00:24:44
Jo
and that's And that's a proper way of doing it. And plus, because you have Blood Mansion, Blood Castle being the sequel, we know it's related, just title-wise.
00:24:50
Robert Howell
Yeah. Yeah. And Blood Castle was with another story. i wanted to, I had the idea for the title Blood Castle right away, they said I'm going to write a story.
00:25:01
Jo
Right.
00:25:03
Robert Howell
But i was trying to look up castles. I looked up castles in Scotland. i was looking all around and nothing flowed.
00:25:07
Jo
Spot one.
00:25:08
Robert Howell
So anyways, my girlfriend went to Niagara Falls for a week vacation. And my habit in the morning is i hope get up, I have my coffee and I read the news, usually local news.
00:25:13
Jo
Cool.
00:25:20
Robert Howell
And in the the the news was a story about, at a conservatory called Ball's Conservatory, they had opened up something called a wind phone. So I read up what a wind phone was, and that was the inspiration for Blood Castle.
00:25:35
Jo
Very cool. Again, by keeping your mind open, you never know when the story's inspiration going to hit. Like Jack Vernon used to say he would get inspiration just by listening to the grocery store.
00:25:48
Jo
You never know when it's going to hit. And it's something that the light comes on, and it's time to write.
00:25:53
Robert Howell
yep
00:25:54
Jo
So that that is a very cool lineage. And when you're putting one out after another, how many in this series total that you're going to plan?
00:26:02
Robert Howell
I don't know what it's going to be yet. There's no decision. But I'm trying to get out currently one out just for each Halloween if possible. For example, but last year was a release because ah the the original publisher was sold to an American company.
00:26:17
Robert Howell
So they decided to do a new release for a Blood Mansion with a new cover, which was much better. And it was released September of last year.
00:26:21
Jo
Very cool.
00:26:24
Robert Howell
This year, September of this year, was Blood Castle.
00:26:29
Jo
Nice.
00:26:29
Robert Howell
Next year, i hope to release in September, Blood Village, which is already half finished already.
00:26:36
Jo
That was very cool. And then you can do a box set.
00:26:38
Robert Howell
Well, I already got the inspiration while on vacation this summer for for the fourth one.
00:26:43
Jo
Really? any any Can you give any spoilers? You don't have to, but if you any spoilers for the title? For the fourth one, you know?
00:26:50
Robert Howell
If if it goes way I want, it's going to be Blood Island.
00:26:54
Jo
Nice. Nice. And I honestly love that you got the idea for Blood Mansion. I love how you got the idea. And even the title.
00:27:06
Jo
And then once you get the title hooked, it kind of like lends to everything else you're writing down to Lineage, right?
00:27:12
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:27:12
Jo
that's These are all these hard parts. These are the things that people really don't understand when if they haven't written something before. Sometimes titling is the hardest part. And finding that perfect title can make the rest pop out.
00:27:23
Robert Howell
yeah
00:27:25
Jo
So when you're getting published, how much ownership of the cover do you have? Because you said you got a new cover with the American publisher.
00:27:36
Robert Howell
Well, that that it kind of depends on your contract, but I have a kind of a different flow with this new publisher.
00:27:40
Jo
Right.
00:27:43
Jo
All right.
00:27:44
Robert Howell
They even told me if I wanted to, if I decided that it was going to, because they were they were they were working on different plans at the time, and they even said, if you you want, we'll release you from your contract.
00:27:56
Robert Howell
At that point, they said, if I do, I want my cover rights, and they did not object to that. But at this point in time, i I wouldn't want to be released from the contract with them for that because so far they've treated me very well.
00:28:05
Jo
right
00:28:07
Robert Howell
The only thing is that they're not in seem to be interested interested in some of my other books. So for that, I'm rather looking for an agent or eventually another publisher.
00:28:16
Jo
Best way to get to agent? Keep publishing.
00:28:19
Robert Howell
Well, agents I found so far have been useless. I think I've queried about 200 agents. I queried for Blood Mansion. I got about 70 rejections from them.
00:28:30
Robert Howell
I've queried for two other novels and probably around 300 rejections total. only Only one of my novels that I, he didn't even get an agent asked for the full manuscript. And then after he read it, he said, you know, it's it's a good book, but I'm just not catching them catching it myself. I'm not catching the feeling to sell it.
00:28:49
Robert Howell
I said, okay, on the next one.
00:28:49
Jo
Yeah.
00:28:51
Robert Howell
And that book is ah ah is one that I will put out myself next year if I don't find a publisher because it's and another kind of a horror thriller.
00:28:59
Jo
Nothing wrong with that. In fact, if you put it out yourself, you get all the money.
00:29:02
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:29:03
Jo
It's weird.
00:29:04
Robert Howell
The only thing is if you get the right publisher and the right agent, you can sell a lot more copies and, you know, 1% of a billion dollars is better than 100% of $10.
00:29:14
Jo
I would say like... your Your first contract, what was your royalty percent? Do you remember the first one?
00:29:21
Robert Howell
I think ah ah I'm trying to remember exactly. I think it was something like 30% on
00:29:30
Jo
It's
00:29:31
Robert Howell
and 20% on or something like that.
00:29:35
Jo
not bad.
00:29:36
Robert Howell
i don't remember exactly.
00:29:36
Jo
yeah
00:29:36
Robert Howell
or Yeah.
00:29:37
Jo
Minus any returns anything like that for paperbacks, yeah. Yeah, that's not bad. I think I got a Shasta. Like one of the old like Faygo sodas. I think that's like I got that. Like not even per book.
00:29:47
Robert Howell
Well, it doesn't matter what my royalties were.
00:29:48
Jo
Like the case.
00:29:49
Robert Howell
I never saw a penny of it anyways.
00:29:51
Jo
Right, exactly. exactly like like like ah For those who don't know, there that really was the standard contract then. That really, I think back then especially, it was the standard like 2030. It sounds about right.
00:30:02
Jo
Now, when you are writing these and you have another inspiration, another inspiration, have you ever had difficulties writing a scene? just You just couldn't get it for a while?
00:30:13
Robert Howell
often
00:30:14
Jo
Often. How do you deal with that?
00:30:16
Robert Howell
i put it aside for the time being and I try to write another scene.
00:30:19
Jo
Yeah.
00:30:20
Robert Howell
For example, though I'm working on that is that Blood Village now.
00:30:20
Jo
Yeah.
00:30:23
Robert Howell
I'm at a point, i I know kind of where I want to go, but I don't know how write the next scene.
00:30:28
Robert Howell
But I know what I want through two different scenes later on, so I'm writing those scenes separately. And I can incorporate them when I get to that point. I do that with a lot of my books. I usually have like three or four different word docs going, one with notes, one with research, and one I call chapter insertions, where I've written a chapter and I'll insert it in later.
00:30:38
Jo
like
00:30:48
Jo
Cool. but That's very cool.
00:30:50
Robert Howell
But that that's me.
00:30:51
Jo
probably
00:30:51
Robert Howell
I know different writers work different ways. you You have to go with what feels right for you.
00:30:56
Jo
Yeah, I think so. And you're we're using Word documents. so You're not using links. I know people will swear by Scrivener. I never could get into it. Some people just swear like by these all these other... oh I guess they're more gimmicky geared towards writers versus just like word.
00:31:13
Jo
You just use words.
00:31:14
Robert Howell
and I'm comfortable with WordDoc. It almost feels like I'm on a typewriter, which I learned to to type when was in my teens.
00:31:17
Jo
Yeah.
00:31:20
Jo
Same.
00:31:20
Robert Howell
And it's easy for me. And the only thing I use in the way of any type of AI or anything is that I use the basic Grammarly just to go through my, for for catching spelling errors and stuff like that.
00:31:31
Jo
yeah i Yeah, I would use used to use Grammy. I used ProWritingAid. I found it a little more friendly for fiction. But for ai i because my memory is shot now, I will write a whatever draft or script, and I used to put it on, let's see, this you know it's an old screenwriting gag where you use your note cards.
00:31:57
Jo
You know, you use your note cards and I'll have like character cards to remember who the characters are. And now I can do the same thing with AI by saying, okay, keep track of all my characters.
00:32:08
Jo
So I call Sue's daughter, Linda, in one chapter and I mistakenly call her Lisa in chapter four. It'll flag it for me. And it's it's stuff like your editor would check catch anyways. Yeah.
00:32:21
Jo
But that's what I've been kind of like experimenting with to see how far I can get it just to kind of like help me catch my characters. Really? It's weird.
00:32:30
Robert Howell
That happens to me a lot. I'll call a character or something and then later on I mention. So usually what I do is I do that.
00:32:35
Jo
Yeah.
00:32:38
Robert Howell
I'll go through the word find and see where where where all the character name is.
00:32:40
Jo
i
00:32:41
Robert Howell
And if I see I used the wrong name meant multiple times, I'll say wherever this word is, replace it with this.
00:32:48
Jo
Yeah.
00:32:48
Robert Howell
Saves a lot of work.
00:32:50
Jo
Did you ever go like, okay, I called it, the original name was this one. i only said it 12 times and the name I messed up was 25 times. I'll just replace it 12. Like, uh, yeah.
00:32:59
Robert Howell
Well, pretty close to that. I mean, I've done a few times where I change the name halfway through the book and I'm looking at it later and say, oh, I like the change I need, so going to go back and do it change them all.
00:33:07
Jo
Yeah, it's happy little accents. I like that. I like that idea. And I guess we but we both learned on typewriters. What was your transition from a typewriter to a keyboard, like a computer to keyboard?
00:33:19
Jo
Was it easy or?
00:33:20
Robert Howell
I found it quite easy.
00:33:22
Jo
Okay.
00:33:23
Robert Howell
you know it goes Well, I transitioned from a a manual typewriter to an electric typewriter.
00:33:28
Jo
Electric typewriter. Yeah.
00:33:30
Robert Howell
And then the first computer I had was back in the early nineties.
00:33:30
Jo
The intermediate.
00:33:37
Robert Howell
And the funny thing is, is that someone gave me this computer and I didn't know how to use it.
00:33:37
Jo
Oh,
00:33:43
Robert Howell
So I had it sitting there and I kept popping up the scenes.
00:33:43
Jo
Right.
00:33:46
Robert Howell
Oh, I said, I'll just delete this. I'll leave this it delete this, delete this. And next you know, I deleted the whole program without even realizing it. So now I had a dead computer.
00:33:53
Jo
so but Back in the day when they took cassette tapes.
00:33:57
Robert Howell
Well, when I was in college, we were using COBOL punch cards.
00:34:02
Jo
Oh, my God. The punch cards. Yeah, this this actually all makes sense. i I learned computer programming. Basic was my first language in computer, like basic, basic, and then, you know, Turbo, Pascal, whatever.
00:34:17
Jo
But they're like, still learn that. we Well, you do? Like, yeah in history. I'm like, oh, all the things we used to do, I'll now learn in history class.
00:34:21
Robert Howell
Yeah.
00:34:23
Jo
Like, that's not great. Oh, well, it happens, man. It happens.
00:34:26
Robert Howell
Yeah, we're historic figures now.
00:34:26
Jo
So, yeah. I think so. Like I, I only joking if any administration and person hears this, I'm only kind of joking. I sometimes I'll teach on the side and one of my students said like, you know, back in the 1900s, like what?
00:34:41
Jo
Yeah. 1900s. This happened. like You mean 1990 minus 500 points. Sorry. Like I can't have this in my classroom no more.
00:34:48
Robert Howell
okay
00:34:50
Jo
Yeah, we we are that old. We're now like the last, so last millennia, really, but last century type thing. Yeah. So when we're looking back, when you're looking back, and you can tell young you, I asked my guests this always, if you can tell you younger you, and I mean, like teenage or below, so preteen around 12, 13.
00:35:11
Jo
What piece of advice would you tell much younger you?
00:35:17
Robert Howell
I would say don't give up your dreams about writing because basically after i you know my late teens, I joined the army. Then I got i went into real estate. I started a family.
00:35:27
Robert Howell
I stopped writing for a long time.
00:35:29
Jo
yeah
00:35:30
Robert Howell
And basically, my dream had always been to be become a published author. But of course, I had more dreams of becoming a Stephen King type of author with...
00:35:42
Robert Howell
I remember the story of Stephen King's first ever book. He had thrown in the garbage before getting it published.
00:35:47
Jo
Yeah. Yeah, steve Stephen King was not like a success. We're out of the box.
00:35:52
Robert Howell
no His first book was Carrie, and he actually had thrown it in the garbage.
00:35:53
Jo
He struggled too. Yeah.
00:35:58
Robert Howell
And his wife took it out of the garbage and said, did you throw this for? it This is good. He said, well, I can't get these scenes right. You're talking about scenes. And one of the scenes he had a hard time with was the shower scene. And she she She brushed it off. She made him finish it.
00:36:13
Robert Howell
He sent it to his agent. His agent called him one day and said, are you sitting down? He said, why do have to down? He said, you better sit down. He said, okay, I'm sitting down. What is it? I just sold the rice for paperbacks, $500,000 for you.
00:36:25
Robert Howell
And that basically started his career.
00:36:26
Jo
that's amazing
00:36:28
Robert Howell
He was living trailer at the time.
00:36:30
Jo
yeah yeah he was like yeah
00:36:32
Robert Howell
So it goes to show if you don't if you keep following your dreams and don't give up on them, they can lead you a lot of places. And that's what I would tell my younger self.
00:36:39
Jo
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm so glad your dream, yeah know it's coming true. You are a published author, right?
00:36:45
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:36:46
Jo
Now what have to do is like step two, make you Stephen King rich.
00:36:50
Robert Howell
i don't even understand Kingrich. If I could sell 100,000 copies in one year, I'd be ecstatic.
00:36:56
Jo
doable it is doable and I think honestly if you stick with the the blood series and start selling it as a bundle I think hit the hundred car thousand and I think again already do the writing is good
00:37:12
Robert Howell
Well, someone once told me that it's your first two, three, four books you're not going to make much money on. It's usually when you get to your fifth, sixth one that you can start to make money.
00:37:19
Jo
and they'll start buying the rest one
00:37:21
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:37:22
Jo
and that And that's kind of like the real cyclical thing. It's it's kind of weird, but true. Like most people discover you in book four, you know, and they're like oh my God, there's a fourth book.
00:37:32
Jo
I remember back up, you know, like what's the first one, on you know?
00:37:35
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:37:37
Jo
and that's just life nowadays well i want to say it's been fantastic and a long time coming long time coming to have this talk so i do appreciate all the time and then robert you've got blood mansion already out blood castle already out coming soon blood village maybe bud island who knows who knows and i i can't wait
00:38:00
Robert Howell
But before that, we'll be a devil of a time in November. That will be self-published.
00:38:05
Jo
Very cool. Where can we find you online? On the interwebs.
00:38:09
Robert Howell
I'm on Twitter at StoryWriter.
00:38:11
Jo
Nice.
00:38:12
Robert Howell
on Instagram at StoryWriter. My website is www.storywriter.com. Sorry,.ca, I say.com.
00:38:21
Jo
Right.
00:38:21
Robert Howell
Just about every one of my social media accounts is under StoryWriter.
00:38:26
Jo
Very cool branding. I can't believe a got starwriter.ca.
00:38:28
Robert Howell
Yep.
00:38:29
Jo
You must have like scalped that like a long time ago. Boom. Done.
00:38:33
Robert Howell
I was lucky to get that back. I put that with my first website back about 25 years ago, 24 years ago, somewhere around there.
00:38:38
Jo
oh wow it's amazing good for you good for you and good for all of us because we can read blunt mansion and blood castle right now go get them don't listen to us no more go on amazon get go from starwriter.ca get look at it and find them out thank you so much for everything robert and everyone else at home yep
00:38:57
Robert Howell
Thank you very much.
00:38:59
Jo
I'm working my Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey was an American like folky guy. He used to do the news. Let me see. We bid you good day. Bye, everyone.
00:39:08
Robert Howell
bye
00:39:08
Jo
One day I'll get it.