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Writing Machine: Armand Rosamilia Talks Horror, Crime, and Cranking Out 400,000 Words a Year
18 Plays21 days ago
Episode Description:
On this episode of What's Kraken?, Jo talks with prolific author Armand Rosamilia who has published over 100 books. Armand shares how a childhood punishment introduced him to Dean Koontz and launched his writing career. Learn why crime thrillers earn him "10 times more" than horror, how he writes 400,000+ words annually using just two fingers, and the story behind his hit "Dirty Deeds" series. Armand also discusses his Twitch writing sessions and annual "MondoCon" writer's retreat.
Key Timestamps:
- 01:21 - Dean Koontz and the summer punishment that created a writer
- 05:31 - Transitioning from horror to crime thrillers
- 08:58 - The birth of "Dirty Deeds" series
- 11:19 - Writing 400,000 words annually with two fingers
- 20:43 - Using Twitch for live writing sessions
- 24:11 - MondoCon writer's retreat
- 27:05 - Current project: "Down and Dirty 5"
Key Points:
- Armand has published over 180 books and has been a full-time writer for 14 years
- Crime thrillers earn him 10 times more revenue than horror fiction
- Writes 1,096 words daily to reach 400,000+ words annually using just two fingers
- Created the "Dirty Deeds" series (12 books) about a hitman who rescues children
- Uses Twitch for live writing sessions three times weekly
- Hosts an annual writer's retreat called "MondoCon"
Resources:
- Website: ArmandRosamilia.com
- Twitch: Armand_Rosamilia (Mon/Wed/Fri at 1PM EST)
- YouTube: Armand Rosamilia
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Transcript
Introduction to Armand's Journey
00:00:07
Jo
Hey everyone, Joe here and today's What's Cracking, we've got a very cool, all you have to do, all you want to know, all you need to know, look at the wall behind my next guest.
00:00:19
Jo
Armand, it's a pleasure to see you here, man. I've got to say, i was really excited to see you and once I saw your room, I somehow got more excited. So thanks for coming, man.
00:00:29
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, thanks for having me on I think i have 183 releases, 184, something along those lines.
00:00:31
Jo
Oh, absolutely. So we will absolutely talk about the horror and crime books. I'm just curious because you were talking before you've pointed to the shelf. Like, these are my books.
00:00:42
Jo
How many books do you have in horror and crime?
00:00:50
Armand Rosamilia
And that's not all like complete novels. That's anthologies I've been in over the years.
00:00:53
Jo
Right.
00:00:58
Armand Rosamilia
But it's a lot of it's it's actually a lot of novels. 30 years of doing
Inspiration from Dean Koontz
00:01:02
Armand Rosamilia
this. And this would be my 14th year full time able to make a living as a writer.
00:01:03
Jo
wow
00:01:07
Jo
That's amazing. Streaming Demons my other show. Sorry. ah Today's What's Cracking. How to feel bad about yourself. Well, welcome to... I'm like, I had a decent track record for a while.
00:01:21
Jo
A hundred? No. Okay, my track record is little less than yours now. So what got you into writing, man?
00:01:27
Armand Rosamilia
Dean Koontz. I was 12 years old.
00:01:29
Jo
Oh, wow.
00:01:31
Armand Rosamilia
And I always tell the stars 12 years old. And my brother is a year and a half younger than me. And we used to beat the crap out of each other. And it was like the last, like the last day of school, whatever, whatever year that is like sixth grade or something.
00:01:43
Jo
Yeah.
00:01:47
Armand Rosamilia
And we just brawled. And my mother said, my mother was stay at home mom. And she said, you're both punished for the summer. And literally back then, you were punished for the summer.
00:01:58
Jo
yeah
00:01:59
Armand Rosamilia
And so my brother got to stay in our room with all the toys and everything. And I got stuck in my parents' room and in the front of the house, watching all the kids play for two months.
00:02:09
Armand Rosamilia
And my mother still is a huge, huge horror reader.
00:02:13
Jo
Cool.
00:02:14
Armand Rosamilia
And she had like, you know at that point, up up to that point, every Stephen King book. And I tried a couple, I was like, this is, I'm 12, this is too wordy. And then I grabbed a Dean Koontz book,
00:02:25
Armand Rosamilia
And I loved it. And I started reading all of them. And my mother realized, you know, that that I was really digging reading and stuff. So she would leave me a stack of books and say, here, these are the ones you can read.
00:02:39
Armand Rosamilia
And, you know, and basically anything Dean Kuntz. And I remember when Phantoms came out. i Like maybe I was 13 or something.
00:02:45
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:48
Armand Rosamilia
And I read that and I just absolutely loved it. And I and i i i wrote a report in school in like seventh grade or whatever.
00:02:55
Jo
really
00:02:56
Armand Rosamilia
you know, like you do like, what do you want to be when you grow up?
00:02:58
Jo
yeah
00:02:58
Armand Rosamilia
And everybody's like, I want to play for the, I want to play a quarterback for the New York Jets. And I want to be a fireman. And i was like, I want to be a, I want to be a writer. And my mother always teases me. She still has that.
00:03:09
Armand Rosamilia
And she always teased me. She said, you should have been, you should have wrote, I want to be a rich and famous writer.
Writing Style and Genre Focus
00:03:14
Armand Rosamilia
you know, because you became a writer, but, but that was it. It was, it was no looking back from that moment. I always had a book anytime a Dean Kuntz book to this day, like he just came out with a book two days ago and I immediately downloaded and started reading it.
00:03:29
Jo
That's an amazing story. I'm so, A, very cool mom, by the way.
00:03:34
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:03:34
Jo
Very cool mom.
00:03:35
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:03:35
Jo
that That's the way to do it. And B, man, good for you. Good for, honestly, Dean Kutz. I haven't heard that name in a long time. Not because he stopped writing.
00:03:47
Jo
It's because like you know everything else has been like andda that. So you're bringing me back to my childhood.
00:03:50
Armand Rosamilia
yeah
00:03:51
Jo
I'm like, my God. That's right. like That was the the big one. like It was him and King and then Dean Kuntz and then like one other person might pop in now and then.
00:04:03
Jo
Yeah.
00:04:04
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, here and there. But it was, yeah it was King.
00:04:05
Jo
Yeah.
00:04:05
Armand Rosamilia
king You were either King fan or a Koontz fan. Most people were were King fans ah growing up. But i was i was that i was the Koontz fan, which was kind of neat.
00:04:17
Jo
Which is unique because you really do hit it on the head. The difference between the two was not so much level of craft. It's how much stuff you have to flip through for Stephen King to get to the fucking point.
00:04:28
Jo
Oh, we can swear on this podcast, by the way, to get to the point.
00:04:28
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:04:31
Jo
Like, oh my God, i love both. i I do. I love both. I'm looking my wall of horrors in front of me right now.
00:04:36
Armand Rosamilia
Right.
00:04:37
Jo
Like I've got like a lot of, I don't have the new one. So the new one's good. Of course it's good.
00:04:41
Armand Rosamilia
All of them. the So Dean Kuhn signed a deal with Amazon.
00:04:43
Jo
Yes. Yes.
00:04:45
Armand Rosamilia
So like the last three, four years, all of his books have come out. They're all in Kindle Unlimited and they're all, Yeah, so he's been he's been on a roll, two, three books every year.
00:04:52
Jo
but
00:04:56
Armand Rosamilia
and um And his new stuff is just, his new stuff is great because he's older now. So it's more of, ah you know, how shitty is the world right now?
00:05:01
Jo
Yeah.
00:05:06
Armand Rosamilia
And I'm going to make these great, great kids. They're very character driven and they're all very different.
00:05:10
Jo
Yeah.
00:05:11
Armand Rosamilia
So.
00:05:12
Jo
that that's that's i love That's one of the things I really love about good writing, especially if for horror. They're character-driven.
00:05:21
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:05:22
Jo
It's not like, oh, this is the plot, and i fill in like the cardboard cutouts. No, no, no. like The characters really drive the story. And that's something he's a master of. And I can't believe, I didn't know he made that deal of Amazon because dang, that's like ACDC making a deal of Walmart back in the day.
00:05:37
Armand Rosamilia
Right.
00:05:38
Jo
You sold out. You sure did.
00:05:40
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:05:40
Jo
i mean, but you sold out every copy, man, because once it goes to the store, they already bought them.
00:05:41
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, exactly.
00:05:44
Armand Rosamilia
100%. Yeah, he's he's just really mastered writing great different characters.
00:05:47
Jo
Yeah.
00:05:50
Armand Rosamilia
You know, always ah we say you can have phenomenal characters in a book.
00:05:55
Jo
Right.
00:05:55
Armand Rosamilia
but ah ah a so-so plot, and it's still going to probably be a great book.
00:05:59
Jo
Right.
00:06:00
Armand Rosamilia
But you could have a so-so characters in a great plot, and nobody nobody cares. And that was that was the one thing when i so when I transitioned into writing crime thrillers, is my wife is a huge you know Janet Ivanovic fan, and you know the Stephanie Plum series, and I wanted to write something like that.
00:06:13
Jo
right
00:06:18
Armand Rosamilia
And I'd never read those books, and I said to her, well, what tell me about the plots. Tell me about it. And she like, I don't know. I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, I've read like 20 books, but I can't tell you the plot of any of, I can tell you plots.
00:06:30
Armand Rosamilia
I don't know what book it is, but I can tell you which guy she was seeing in the books, which different, like it's, it's all about the characters.
00:06:31
Jo
Right.
00:06:38
Armand Rosamilia
And so I realized, you know what? i I need to write more character driven
The 'Dirty Deeds' Series
00:06:44
Armand Rosamilia
books. I need to create ah series that you, you care about the main character.
00:06:45
Jo
Right.
00:06:50
Jo
I think that's that's where to go. And I'm looking through, like you're doing a mystery or a thrill or a crime book. Even the Agatha Christie's,
00:07:01
Jo
or maybe especially like of the Chrissy's. I can't remember all the plots, but I remember Hercules Perrault. I remember Miss Married. I remember the characters.
00:07:08
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:07:09
Jo
I can't remember. I couldn't tell which plot goes to which unless it's like the famous like murder-oriented express, you know.
00:07:15
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:15
Jo
It's been a movie 12,000 times. so
00:07:17
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:07:17
Jo
So you started to, moved from horror and then because of your wife's interest, you went to crime?
00:07:24
Armand Rosamilia
No, actually, the the weird part is I always loved crime thrillers. I always read you know i read all the classics.
00:07:28
Jo
Okay.
00:07:30
Armand Rosamilia
I read Raymond Chandler, and I read you know i read ah you know all that stuff.
00:07:32
Jo
hey
00:07:35
Armand Rosamilia
And I love, but I didn't think i I had the chops to write any of that stuff.
00:07:40
Jo
Interesting. right.
00:07:41
Armand Rosamilia
And back 2015, Amazon had a thing called Kindle Scout. And it was a contest, and they were they bought... yeah only I think they ended up buying like 200 books out of like 10,000 that were submitted.
00:07:56
Armand Rosamilia
And when I first read it, I read the, the okay, here's what they're doing. No horror. They wanted thrillers. They wanted romance. They wanted sci-fi.
00:08:04
Jo
Yes.
00:08:05
Armand Rosamilia
You know, they want, you know, that but you stuff, ah you know, nothing too crazy in it.
00:08:06
Jo
The main cells.
00:08:11
Armand Rosamilia
and yeah Not, it not, no sex and violence and profanity, all of that. And I said, you know what? I've been working on this idea in my head that is about a a hitman who kills children.
00:08:23
Armand Rosamilia
Very dark. I have kids. I'm like, I don't even know if I can write this thing. It was called ah Killing is My Business and Business is Good after the Megadeth album.
00:08:27
Jo
Right.
00:08:32
Jo
Megadeth.
00:08:33
Armand Rosamilia
And so i was like, you know what? i I had kind of started it. And then I said, wait a minute. What if he doesn't kill the children? What if he saves them? What if like a senator or a politician or an athlete or something has like an affair and and there's a kid born?
00:08:46
Jo
Right.
00:08:50
Armand Rosamilia
what would What would happen if he's the guy who they pay kidnap the kid and make the kid disappear? But instead of killing the kid, he he has a system where he he moves them to
Writing Schedule and Productivity
00:09:03
Armand Rosamilia
people who want a kid.
00:09:03
Jo
I like that.
00:09:05
Armand Rosamilia
And so that was the whole premise and it became Dirty Deeds and they bought the first book.
00:09:05
Jo
Right.
00:09:10
Armand Rosamilia
And it did phenomenal. And I was going to sign a deal with them for future books, but they wanted like one a year.
00:09:14
Jo
right
00:09:18
Armand Rosamilia
And I'm like, the first book ends on a cliffhanger. I can't wait a year for a second book to come out. And I was already getting reviews of, you know, this ends on a cliffhanger, one star, you know, that kind of, yeah, that kind of thing.
00:09:29
Jo
but Why did you, Staya? Series, what's that?
00:09:32
Armand Rosamilia
So I was like, you know what? No. So I ended up, uh, 12 books, the series has been complete. So the first one came out in January of 2016. And then I put like two out a year on average from then I ended up doing 12 books in that series, which has led to spinoff series, a couple of other thrillers with some of those characters in it.
00:09:45
Jo
Okay.
00:09:51
Jo
Right.
00:09:53
Jo
Yeah, that's amazing.
00:09:53
Armand Rosamilia
But for me, that was like, Hey, I can do this. I can actually write, you know, a crime thriller where it, it, it makes sense. And it's, It's not that far from writing a horror book.
00:10:04
Jo
Right.
00:10:04
Armand Rosamilia
It's just the, it's kind of the, I look at it, like I go, you know what? Horror book, we're point of view of the monster and we're point of view of all the crazy stuff that happens. Crime thrillers, we're trying to stop all the crazy stuff from happening.
00:10:18
Jo
I think you on head again. And this it's the, it's horror adjacent, meaning you can still see the elements of it. You can still see the same, the basic building blocks of it, but it's slightly askew.
00:10:26
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:10:30
Jo
So especially if crime thriller, and I love what we did with yours, right? Not only the titles going from, you know, Megadeth to ACDC, by the way, I,
00:10:39
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:10:39
Jo
We'll catch all of these. I do the same. Mine were monkey songs. Like, oh, Pleasant Billy Sunday. Sure. Whatever.
00:10:47
Armand Rosamilia
yeah
00:10:48
Jo
you've seen all this, but it's it's you're flipping it. So it's not like you're trying to, like the guy's trying kill all the kids. Now he has a network to save them. And then that network becomes maybe some spinoff characters which have their own book.
00:11:01
Jo
And it builds an empire, which is brilliant. Good job for you, man. Now, one a year, for those of you who don't write, One a year might sound like little or or a lot, depending on the spectrum you are of starting your journey or where you are in writing journey, right?
00:11:18
Jo
But two a year, you want to do two a year. Wow. How many words? How many words? I'm just curious for a crime. Is it like 70, 50? Wow. Wow.
00:11:26
Armand Rosamilia
63,000 words is the is the sweet spot.
00:11:26
Jo
right
00:11:28
Jo
wow
00:11:29
Armand Rosamilia
And I'm writing 400,000 or more words a year. i have ah so My wife made me a spreadsheet. So I'm writing several books. I'm writing five or six books a year.
00:11:39
Armand Rosamilia
And between stories and anthologies, and i co-write, I've co-written a bunch of stuff with other people.
00:11:42
Jo
Yeah.
00:11:47
Armand Rosamilia
So I'm putting out, I might put out a book every six weeks, you know, and I've been doing that for for for years.
00:11:52
Jo
the
00:11:55
Jo
but That's amazing it because As a writer, you you know, if you say, oh I put out X amount of titles. Well, that could be in like the anthology section. So you're actually putting out short stories or whatever called novellas.
00:12:12
Jo
Or I'm putting out romance, which is a shorter count. But if you're saying like, no, I'm doing a 400,000 words a year. i'm like, huh? Like what? Like look what now?
00:12:22
Armand Rosamilia
it it comes to if you write 1096 words a day average that's 400 000 words
00:12:23
Jo
Like I was like.
00:12:27
Jo
Right.
00:12:30
Jo
That's not bad. In 1096, that's basically what you're doing chapter then, yeah?
00:12:34
Armand Rosamilia
yeah it's pretty much it's pretty much you're you're you're writing a couple of couple pages into a third page maybe and and i and i
00:12:34
Jo
little over? Yeah.
00:12:39
Jo
Yeah.
00:12:41
Armand Rosamilia
I break it down to that. I don't ever go, got to write 400,000. New Year, got to write 400,000 words. I say, I have to write 1,096 words more today. i have to write ah thousand ninety six words or more today
00:12:52
Jo
That's awesome.
00:12:52
Armand Rosamilia
you know
00:12:53
Jo
That's manageable.
00:12:54
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, right.
00:12:54
Jo
Yeah.
00:12:55
Armand Rosamilia
And that's and that's that's kind of the breakdown ah for me. And then knowing, hey, I'm going to not feel like it some days. My wife is going to yell at me that I'm sitting at the computer, you know, 12 hours a day or whatever, take take me to dinner kind of thing.
00:13:08
Jo
Yeah.
00:13:09
Armand Rosamilia
So I try to build in, ah try to get ahead as much as possible because I know, you know, I might have a book signing. I might have yeah Mother's Day or whatever.
00:13:17
Jo
Right.
00:13:20
Jo
Life might pop up. like the I'm guessing you're typing at a keyboard instead of like the old-fashioned clickety-clacks or even the the legal notebooks, which I don't think anyone quite uses anymore.
00:13:32
Jo
But what if your power goes out? It's like all these...
00:13:35
Armand Rosamilia
My power goes up and i i i go with I go to bed and I read. Yeah.
00:13:40
Jo
Right. yeah Always being working towards something.
00:13:41
Armand Rosamilia
I mean.
00:13:42
Jo
I love that idea.
00:13:43
Armand Rosamilia
yeah
00:13:44
Jo
So if you had to pick to do one genre for the rest of your writing life, what is it going to be?
00:13:51
Armand Rosamilia
Crime thrillers.
00:13:52
Jo
Crime Thrillist.
00:13:52
Armand Rosamilia
I literally make, i I say this all the time and my friends, other authors, we go, we do a lunch every month and I make sure I always say, i literally make 10 times the amount of money selling crime thrillers than I ever did sell in horror books.
00:13:52
Jo
Cool.
00:14:07
Jo
I could testify to part of that. I have, okay, here's here's a challenge to everyone. If you're wondering what sells and what doesn't sell, go to your nearest bookstore, walk past the candles, walk past like the glassware and all the other things they sell to keep the lights on and see how much stock they have in their bookshelves for what genre.
00:14:21
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:14:30
Jo
And take away take away Stephen King, anyone that came from his loins, from the horror. You have to take all his books out, all the Joe Hill books out. Take them away. And see who you have left over. How much horror space?
00:14:42
Jo
Take away Coons. actually, Coons is now Amazon, mostly, anyways.
00:14:45
Armand Rosamilia
yep
00:14:46
Jo
ah see you See how much horror shelf you still got left. Now, look at the other shelves. How much shelf space does romance have? How much shelf space does thrillers have? You know, that's why that's if people want to make money.
00:15:00
Jo
Those are the genres you need to get in.
00:15:03
Armand Rosamilia
and I'll still write horror I still write horror short stories I still love the genre I still read it but I know that in order for me to not have to go back to ah
00:15:05
Jo
Right.
00:15:09
Jo
Absolutely.
00:15:14
Armand Rosamilia
you know, retail management garbage job. This is what, this is the stuff I need to keep writing.
00:15:18
Jo
Right.
00:15:21
Jo
No, absolutely. Absolutely. It becomes a business when you see it can be a business. And I think people forget that. Like, oh, it's all about the art. Like, no, no, no. Art's great and all.
00:15:31
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:15:31
Jo
Art doesn't put food on table.
00:15:33
Armand Rosamilia
Right.
00:15:34
Jo
You use your art to make in the business and then start seeing yourself like that way. That's how you.
00:15:39
Armand Rosamilia
If you look at this, it's a hobby and hey, I got a full time job and I'm making money somewhere else or or my my spouse has a career and we're living off of their money.
00:15:47
Jo
Right.
00:15:48
Armand Rosamilia
kind of Then, you know, then then good. Then you write whatever you want to write.
00:15:52
Jo
Yep. Right.
00:15:53
Armand Rosamilia
You do whatever you want to do. But it gets to a point where I'll start a series and and I'm like, this is not making me any money. You know, I've done I've done.
00:16:06
Armand Rosamilia
At the end of the concert, it'll be 12 monster books with severed press. But while the money is, it but you know, I can't complain about the money. ah
00:16:15
Jo
right
00:16:16
Armand Rosamilia
Horror authors are like, oh my God, I can't believe you make that much. But I make so much more doing the other stuff that I'm like, you know, I don't want to write any more of these monster books.
00:16:25
Jo
and Absolutely, man. It's the marketability sometimes. and used to own a horror company. like I would always love my love for horror runs deep.
00:16:39
Jo
But I also know marketing a bit.
00:16:41
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:16:42
Jo
and ah yeah Love for horror runs deep. The pockets do not. Yeah,
00:16:47
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. It's a, it's a small people don't realize it is a, it's a small rabid community.
00:16:52
Jo
yeah
00:16:53
Armand Rosamilia
So they're going to buy your books, but there's not that many of them out there.
00:16:53
Jo
absolutely.
00:16:57
Armand Rosamilia
Whereas thrillers, romance, those are mainstream enough that people are just going to randomly come in and, and, and they're going to buy your stuff and they're going to buy everything.
00:17:02
Jo
Oh, the airplane books.
00:17:07
Jo
Yeah, it's not to I don't need to pimp Steve Piper at all, but like not to we probably know the course we're talking about. Like, yeah, they will buy a back catalogs a thousand of percent.
00:17:18
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:17:19
Jo
You have a series. You have multiple series. You have 100 books. They might even buy your horror stuff just for giggles, you know, but they'll definitely buy the entire series.
00:17:26
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:17:28
Jo
We had a series of five or six in a line. They're buying all them.
00:17:33
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. So I have a lot of, i have a, Dirty Deeds is 12 books.
00:17:37
Jo
Wow.
00:17:37
Armand Rosamilia
My First Coast Thrillers is six. I'm writing Down and Dirty, which combines a character from both of those series.
00:17:43
Jo
Nice.
00:17:44
Armand Rosamilia
That'll be six. um I do every year, ah me and another author, Tom Duffy, we've done we we just started our third a set of trilogies. So we've done a heist trilogy we put out a couple years ago. And then last year we did a shipwreck adventure one with with one of two of the characters from that.
00:18:05
Armand Rosamilia
And then we'll do another. So every January, February, March, we rapid release three books.
00:18:07
Jo
yeah
00:18:10
Armand Rosamilia
And so we're we're writing them now and we'll set them up to put them out.
00:18:10
Jo
Okay.
00:18:13
Jo
And then pop, pop, pop.
00:18:14
Armand Rosamilia
And then they'll just be like January 15th, February 15th, March 15th, all three books.
00:18:15
Jo
Yeah.
00:18:20
Armand Rosamilia
And then ah in the summer, we'll put a box set of all three books out.
00:18:24
Jo
Okay. So when you're doing this and that, again, for those who don't know, that's an amazing train like Johnny Cash rhythm schedule. They put yourself on. Do you find the scheduling part as important as the creative part?
00:18:40
Armand Rosamilia
A hundred percent. It's the, you know, it's the, I do, I, so I call the, my poor man's James Patterson factory. You know, I have a, I literally have a dry erase board here and it has every project and it's broken down by a monthly that, okay, if I write roughly 30,000 words on this or whatever, then I can finish this novel in this.
00:19:04
Armand Rosamilia
And then I edits is here.
00:19:04
Jo
Right. Yeah.
00:19:06
Armand Rosamilia
Beta readers is here. So I literally have like the next 18 months of, roughly laid it out and again it doesn't always work out that way but sometimes it's hey i've i get into a ah groove and i've done five and six thousand words especially towards the end of a book and i just knock i'd knock out that last 20 000 words in like three days or four days and then i'm like i'm ahead let me let me go to beta readers let me go to my editor let me you know the schedule is going to stay the same the the the pre-orders are are already set on a lot of these
00:19:11
Jo
right
00:19:22
Jo
yeah
00:19:38
Jo
Right.
Community and Engagement on Twitch
00:19:39
Jo
Oh yeah. change
00:19:39
Armand Rosamilia
but
00:19:40
Armand Rosamilia
let me, um you know, let me get these books done. So now they're just kind of, they're sitting there for for three weeks or or a month or ahead of schedule, which is nice.
00:19:49
Jo
but That's, that's really great. And yes, as you write, at least for me and apparently yourself, the closer you are to the end, the faster it comes. like that that dot that that that You're just trying to like,
00:20:00
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. and And I don't, I'm not an outliner at all. I'm a total pantser. So i have I have no idea where this this is going.
00:20:05
Jo
good high five.
00:20:08
Armand Rosamilia
It's literally, it's the what if question.
00:20:09
Jo
brilliant yep yeah
00:20:13
Armand Rosamilia
And let's see where let's see where this goes. And I'll take, ah you know, I have a million post-it notes where I'm writing character names down or something. Yeah. i And that's that's that's all I really need to just, you know, keep it going. And I'm writing multiple projects like in the same day.
00:20:30
Jo
oh oh my god it's like talking to me nice more successful version me
00:20:31
Armand Rosamilia
So I'm just all, I'm all over the place. I do on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1 PM Eastern standard time. i go live on Twitch and I write for about an hour.
00:20:43
Jo
Really?
00:20:44
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:20:44
Jo
you get the You're using Twitch to... Really?
00:20:46
Armand Rosamilia
ah you I'm using Twitch to write. Yeah.
00:20:48
Jo
What's your Twitch handle?
00:20:49
Armand Rosamilia
It's ah Armand underscore Rosamilia. It's just, it's my name.
00:20:52
Jo
Nice. Basically the name. um We'll put it in the notes.
00:20:54
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. And, um and so that's great. And then, so you're making, I'm making money on Twitch writing. And I'm talking to people, and there's other writers that are in there. There might be a dozen people in there on any given day.
00:21:07
Armand Rosamilia
And we're joking around, and we're talking, and we're...
00:21:09
Jo
Yeah.
00:21:11
Armand Rosamilia
we're and But we're talking, like... ah While I'm writing, um there's also a lot of breaks of, let's talk about, you know, let's talk about Winger from the 80s. Let's talk about, hey, Ace Frehley's playing some show.
00:21:23
Armand Rosamilia
Like, random... heavy metal stuff. I talk about way, way obscure heavy metal bands.
00:21:25
Jo
Yeah.
00:21:29
Armand Rosamilia
We'll talk about food. I talk about food way too much. So we just talk about things. And it's, for me, it's kind of like getting out of the house because three days week I get to talk to other people, which is great.
00:21:37
Jo
Yeah.
00:21:39
Jo
It's amazing. That's a good idea.
00:21:40
Armand Rosamilia
And then I take that, I take that Twitch when it's done that hour, and then I move it over to YouTube And then I'm trying to build up my YouTube to that magical thousand subscribers so I can make money on YouTube by using that content with other content.
00:21:53
Jo
Right.
00:21:58
Jo
That's
00:21:58
Armand Rosamilia
So it's it's that return on investment of um'm I'm writing, i got to write these stories anyway, but now I'm making money on Twitch and I'll eventually make money on YouTube but by you watching me writing some of that stuff.
00:22:01
Jo
right.
00:22:05
Jo
Yeah.
00:22:12
Jo
That's amazing. I mean, honestly, I never thought about using Twitch. I tried Twitch to get it. I couldn't. I never thought using Twitch to do the writing thing. like
00:22:19
Armand Rosamilia
yeah there's a lot of There's a lot of writers on there. the late One of my best friends in the world, Jay Wilburn, had started doing it before he passed away, about a year or so.
00:22:23
Jo
Huh?
00:22:28
Armand Rosamilia
And he's like, you got to do this because you're making money off of making money. and And I was like, you know what, you're right. And I started doing it. And it's so it's just a lot of it's a lot of fun.
00:22:39
Armand Rosamilia
It also, those days when I'm like, hey, the depression's kicking my ass. or I just don't feel like doing anything.
00:22:44
Jo
Yeah.
00:22:45
Armand Rosamilia
I'm like, I got to get on. You know, it's also great for me because I'm home all the time. So it's like, ah i got to go online. And I i wore this shirt.
00:22:53
Jo
It's a social.
00:22:55
Armand Rosamilia
I've worn these clothes for three straight days. I better go take a shower. So nobody's like, didn't you wear that on Monday? It's now Wednesday, you know?
00:23:03
Jo
Yeah.
00:23:03
Armand Rosamilia
So it it it really, mentally it helps me because it forces me to sit down and write.
00:23:09
Jo
Absolutely.
00:23:09
Armand Rosamilia
It forces me on those days. And I'm like, you know what? If I can get my, you know, yesterday i was on and I did like 1,200 words. um just sitting in that hour, just knocking it off. And I, and then this is, I'm two finger typing.
00:23:23
Jo
Really?
00:23:23
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. I'm like literally two finger, finger typing.
00:23:24
Jo
wow. 400,000 words, two fingers with typing.
00:23:28
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. And so it's, um it's great.
00:23:28
Jo
My God.
00:23:31
Armand Rosamilia
And it just really keeps, it, it keeps me honest. You know, I and look at all of this and I'm like, I have to write, but i also have to you also have to keep people
MondoCon and Writer's Community
00:23:42
Armand Rosamilia
interested in your stuff.
00:23:42
Jo
Right.
00:23:44
Armand Rosamilia
you know There's no such thing as i wrote ah i write a book and I just put it out and no one's seen me or talked to me.
00:23:48
Jo
Buy it. Yeah.
00:23:49
Armand Rosamilia
But yeah, you're magically going to make millions of dollars off.
00:23:52
Jo
No, no, there's, there's too many other people.
00:23:52
Armand Rosamilia
It's never going to happen. Unless you're Bentley Little. if Bentley Little can do it.
00:23:55
Jo
Yeah, absolutely. And I, I'm going to have to jump in and to get my Twitch account back just to jump in and see yours. this This is fascinating to me.
00:24:03
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, definitely. Sure. jump in and Jump in and join in. Like I said, there's other authors on there.
00:24:06
Jo
Yeah.
00:24:08
Armand Rosamilia
There's people that will just pop in and out. There's a core of four or five people that every one o'clock, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they are they are there and we're talking.
00:24:12
Jo
Wow.
00:24:18
Armand Rosamilia
I do a thing every August. This be the fifth year now called MondoCon. My nickname growing up. name is actually Armando.
00:24:26
Jo
Right.
00:24:26
Armand Rosamilia
But I go by Armand or Armin. And so Mondo was my nickname. So I did a thing called MondoCon as a kind of like as a joke. and I'm like, I said to my wife, I want to invite authors to come and hang out for a weekend and we'll write. We'll do like a writer's retreat.
00:24:40
Armand Rosamilia
And she's like, I'll i'll cook all weekend. my My wife's Southern. She loves to cook.
00:24:45
Jo
Oh, wow.
00:24:46
Armand Rosamilia
So Thursday, people fly in and they leave Monday. And we'll have like 10 or 12 writers that will – about half them we have three guest rooms. We have two couches. So we'll get like – people fly in from Milwaukee.
00:24:58
Armand Rosamilia
They fly in from Philly. They fly in from New York, from New Jersey, all over the place.
00:25:03
Jo
Love it. Yeah. Oh,
00:25:04
Armand Rosamilia
And they'll they'll fly in, and then we do a writer's retreat, and we're just – and the goal is like, okay – 5,000 words is is your goal and you write it on the dry erase board and sitting in the living room and then we check it off and everybody cheers and then we eat way too much food and there's, you know, bags and bags of M&Ms and my wife makes five different kinds of cookies and all kinds of stuff.
00:25:26
Jo
ah wow
00:25:28
Armand Rosamilia
And it's it's great because for me, it's it's really that motivation of, I know for those Friday, Saturday and Sunday when we're writing, I know I got to do 15,000 words those three days.
Reflections and Advice
00:25:40
Armand Rosamilia
you know and And so we're getting to the point now where we're we're already set up. We know who's coming in August. And it's like, what are you working on? What are you going to do?
00:25:50
Armand Rosamilia
Because I also have five or six local writers that will also come.
00:25:53
Jo
Right. That's cool, man.
00:25:55
Armand Rosamilia
And so we'll just all sit around. And we'll I mean, we tons and tons of coffee. you know i probably I do a thing called Coffee of the Day, where I i try a different coffee every day.
00:26:06
Armand Rosamilia
And I literally have like 500 different K-Cups.
00:26:09
Jo
Really?
00:26:10
Armand Rosamilia
And so so we'll just stack up K-cups and then like people, there's a there's ah a buddy of mine, JC Walsh from Philly, and he'll literally drink like 10 to 15 cups of coffee a day while he's here.
00:26:20
Jo
Paul.
00:26:22
Armand Rosamilia
And I'm like, dude, you're already too wired.
00:26:22
Jo
Paul.
00:26:24
Armand Rosamilia
i can You better switch to decaf. But yeah, but well we'll, it's great because then, and then afterwards we'll have my wife will make a big dinner and then we so then we sit around and we'll have some drinks and we'll sit out in the in the back of it's not too hot.
00:26:39
Armand Rosamilia
And we'll just talk shop until, you know one o'clock in the morning. And then, okay, 9 a.m., let's go. 9 a.m., everybody get your coffee and sit down and write.
00:26:45
Jo
yeah
00:26:47
Armand Rosamilia
And, again, this is the fifth year we'll be doing it, which is great.
00:26:51
Jo
Very cool, man. Very cool. And again, if you tuned in late, the podcast cast is called Make Joe Jealous.
00:26:58
Armand Rosamilia
but
00:26:58
Jo
that's That's the title of today's podcast. with ah but So this is amazing. I mean, honestly, the time just, wow. Time just flew. So what are you working on that you can talk about?
00:27:10
Jo
What's your next release?
00:27:12
Armand Rosamilia
My next release will be Down and Dirty 5, which is um ah serial killers.
00:27:15
Jo
Good.
00:27:18
Armand Rosamilia
Every book they chase down it in a different place, serial killers. And it's Marissa from the Dirty Deeds series and x Xavier from the First Coast Driller series. ah The two of them get put together in a special squad um for the government to go and chase down serial killers. So this one, book five, is set in Alaska.
00:27:39
Armand Rosamilia
which is ah which is a lot of fun to chase down a serial killer in Alaska.
00:27:39
Jo
Wow.
00:27:43
Armand Rosamilia
But we've had Tampa, Florida, Nashville.
00:27:44
Jo
Yeah.
00:27:47
Armand Rosamilia
um I can't remember where the other ones.
00:27:50
Jo
Well, that's pretty cool. It's like ah it's like a concert tour.
00:27:53
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah, pretty much.
00:27:54
Jo
You know, I love it.
00:27:54
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah. It's like, okay, you've you've captured the person in Nashville, ah but now you've got to go to Las Vegas. That was the the ah third one was they they had to go to Vegas.
00:28:01
Jo
out
00:28:01
Armand Rosamilia
Yeah.
00:28:02
Jo
that's best's That's amazing, man. That's amazing. So where can we find your books? Where can we find your books right now?
00:28:08
Armand Rosamilia
Obviously, I'm on Amazon. Check that out. ArmandRosamilia.com is all my was my website. Again, find me on Twitch.
00:28:18
Armand Rosamilia
Find me on YouTube. Please find me on YouTube. um um I want to build that up. it's I've i got like 200 and something people on there. And I post my coffee short every morning.
00:28:29
Jo
Nice.
00:28:29
Armand Rosamilia
And I do book book reviews. i do um I'm to start doing... the podcast thing again but just doing interviews with like ah thriller authors and stuff like that because i did it for years I mean I did ah Armcast podcast I had 400 episodes and ah the Mondo Method podcast me and Chuck Buddha did together we had 333 episodes
00:28:39
Jo
Right? Yeah.
00:28:47
Jo
Wow.
00:28:54
Jo
That's amazing, man You are a powerhouse of entertainment.
00:28:55
Armand Rosamilia
like did
00:28:57
Jo
Like some serious.
00:28:58
Armand Rosamilia
I just try to keep busy you know you just you gotta just keep busy
00:29:00
Jo
Maybe. Yeah. And keep that moving forward one step after another, man.
00:29:04
Armand Rosamilia
exactly
00:29:05
Jo
Well, what would you... Okay. i ask all my guests this. If you can give a piece of information to younger you, what would it be? don't
00:29:15
Armand Rosamilia
Not stress so much, not stress about, am i I did retail management for 20 something years.
00:29:17
Jo
know.
00:29:21
Armand Rosamilia
I hated every second of it. Um, not, so not stressed about that. I was, uh, I'm 10 years married now to a wonderful person who totally supports me, but I've been divorced twice and I was in both horrible relationships and they they hated that I was a writer.
00:29:40
Armand Rosamilia
They wanted me to no work overtime, work and work and work, and and and that's how you're going to make your money and you're wasting your time being creative.
00:29:43
Jo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:48
Armand Rosamilia
And it stressed me out so much. And, you know, I would love to go back and say, I would love to go back and say to 18 year old me, when I had my first short story ever published, I would, read this is what you're going to do for the rest of your life.
00:30:03
Armand Rosamilia
But it's going to take you a long time to get there.
00:30:03
Jo
yeah
00:30:06
Armand Rosamilia
It's going to take you all all of your 20s and everything. Don't stress about it. Just you know do what you got to do.
00:30:12
Jo
I think that's brilliant. And I'm so glad you're in a place where you're doing this full time. You got there, man. You got there. You have a loving spouse who was apparently a fantastic cook.
00:30:23
Jo
So this is amazing, man.
00:30:23
Armand Rosamilia
Yes. that's right that's but That's why i'm never goingnna so I'm never going to lose weight.
00:30:29
Jo
Hey, man. Worst things to lose, bro. All right, everyone. Thanks again for stopping in This has been lovely. I have to have you up on again. And one day I'll be on your Twitch going, aha. Actually, I don't type on Twitch. I guess we just Twitch. Oh, yeah.
00:30:42
Jo
I'll learn Twitch again.
00:30:43
Armand Rosamilia
You'll figure it out.
00:30:44
Jo
Yeah. Okay, everyone. Thanks again. Bye.