Self-Publisher Interview with Kealan Patrick Burke
1. When did you start writing?
I’ve been writing since I was eight years old. I was first published on my 18th birthday, and my first professional sale was in 2004, when I was 28.
2. What came first: Self-publishing your books or getting your books published by a press? What was that experience like?
Most of my books were published by small and specialty presses like Cemetery Dance, Subterranean, Necessary Evil, Bloodletting, and others long before self-publishing rose to prominence. Once the rights reverted back to me, I self-published them as there seemed to be a demand for them. Being published in any capacity is great, of course, but it’s hard to beat the first time a print publisher read my work and agreed to publish it. If I remember correctly, I got as drunk as if I’d been nominated for an Oscar.
3. What kind of books do you write?
I work primarily in darker genres: horror, crime, mystery.
4. What can you tell me about your new books coming out this month? (Feel free to include an excerpt from each book, if you’d like.)
October saw the release of my novel The Widows of Winding Gale from Earthling Publications. I’m very proud of that book and it’s since sold out, though a paperback and digital release is on the cards for next year. It’s about the women on an isolated Irish island in the 1940s who are forced to battle a maritime evil after their husbands go missing at sea.
Also due for release this month is my first horror western, The Star of the Show, which Subterranean Press will be releasing as an ebook. I’m publishing the trade paperback edition myself. It’s the story of an outlaw who crosses the border of the wrong town and finds himself roped into a heist that as expected, doesn’t go very well.
The book was released as a free ebook from Subterranean Press and a trade paperback through Amazon.
5. What sort of methods do you use for book promotion?
Over the years I’ve tried pretty much every available avenue and have found that social media is still the most effective marketing tool for me.
6. Where do you get your ideas for stories?
It could be anything: a snippet of overheard conversation, a bad dream, an idle thought that spins out into something intriguing, the way the light catches an object at dawn, old memories good and bad, traumas and insecurities and fears…I could sit here for a year and not be able to adequately answer that question, because sometimes I don’t know where the ideas come from.
7. I noticed that you are also a self-publisher. What makes you to decide to self-pub a book or to submit it to a publisher?
I used to base those decisions on the state of publishing at the time. If a book I wrote was too short or too niche to sell elsewhere, it just made more sense to publish it myself. Similarly, if a book had already been published and the rights reverted to me, it made less sense to try to resell it to trad publishing houses, so I self-published it. For new material, I always weigh up the viability of it as a mass market title or seek out limited edition publishers to have a first run at it. Then later, once the books have sold out, I’ll publish it myself, as it’s often harder to interest traditional publishers in a book that’s already been published. Plus, a lot of what I’ve written isn’t commercial enough for the big houses, so I go where I’m wanted.
8. How do you manage the self-publishing end of your books alongside those getting published by an indie press? Do you promote them equally?
The best indie presses know how to market books, which eases the burden a little on the author whereas self-publishing means you are your own marketing department so it’s a lot more work. But generally speaking, I try to amplify every book I’ve written equally so the readers are aware of them.
9. What are you working on right now?
I have a few short stories I’ve promised to editors that need to get written before the end of the year, and I’ve started planning the sequel to my novel Kin. I’m also putting the finishing touches on a new novel, MR. STITCH, and working on some screenplays.
10. Any advice for other authors?
Write for yourself first, the audience second. Pay no attention to negative reviews, because every book ever written gets them. And never give up. If writing is your calling, insist upon staying the course.
ABOUT KEALAN:
Hailed by Booklist as “one of the most clever and original talents in contemporary horror,” Kealan Patrick Burke was born and raised in Ireland and emigrated to the United States a few weeks before 9/11.
Since then, he has written six novels, among them the popular southern gothic Kin, and over two hundred short stories and novellas, many of which are in various stages of development for film/TV.
In 2005, Burke won the Bram Stoker Award for his coming-of-age novella The Turtle Boy, the first book in the acclaimed Timmy Quinn series.
As editor, he helmed the anthologies Night Visions 12, Taverns of the Dead, and Quietly Now, a tribute anthology to one of Burke’s influences, the late Charles L. Grant.
More recently, he wrote the screenplays for Sour Candy (based on his novella), and the remake of the iconic horror film The Changeling (1980), for the original film's producer, Joel B. Michaels.
He also adapted Sour Candy as a graphic novel for John Carpenter's Night Terrors.
His most recent release is Cottonmouth, a prequel to Kin. The Widows of Winding Gale, a maritime horror novel set in Ireland, is due for release in October as a signed limited edition from Earthling Publications.
Kealan is represented by Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House and Valarie Phillips at Verve Talent & Literary Agency.
He lives in Ohio with a Scooby Doo lookalike rescue named Red.