Interview with Andrew Kent - CONTEST CLOSED

Friday, November 6th, 2009 | Posted by: Andrew Kent, Christopher Meeks, Uncategorized

The following interview of Andrew Kent was conducted by Backword Books author Christopher Meeks. At the end of the interview, you’ll find out how you can win free, autographed copies of Kent’s excellent novels, “Spam & Eggs: A Johnny Denovo Mystery” and “The Green Monster: A Johnny Denovo Mystery.”

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: What inspired you to write the Johnny Denovo mystery series and how did you settle on, to quote one description, “fast-paced novels about a detective who uses metaphors to solve crimes?”

ANDREW KENT: I write a lot, and always have – essays, short stories, humor, magazine articles, scholarly articles, and blogs. But the novel was a form I hadn’t cracked yet. In early attempts to write a novel, I’d often get a few chapters into pursuing an idea, and either the characters or plot would bore me. I felt like some conceptual underpinning was missing.

Then, a few years ago, I was introduced to a form of qualitative customer research that explores the metaphors people work within. If you’ve ever done focus groups or surveys, it’s very frustrating because people can’t really tell you how they’ll behave or why they said something. That’s where qualitative research comes in. Its purpose it to expose thoughts people aren’t even really aware of. The explorations I saw really uncovered unstated, even unknown, desires and preferences. I felt like I was for the first time truly seeing our customers and how they think, how they make decisions.

And it’s not conscious at all. It’s visceral, instinctual, and it all stems from the limbic brain, the small, highly evolved brain between our newer cerebrum and the more ancient lizard brain that controls breathing and eye-tracking. The limbic brain reconciles the external world and your internal milieu. And it thinks in metaphors. The advantages of using metaphors for thinking are easy to see – if you have a metaphorical understanding of something new, you can anticipate and understand, then adapt and grow beyond that initial understanding. A metaphor allows you to base a thought on a known reality and extend it with confidence.

Of course, the person doing the research had seen things like this plenty of times, and told me, “We’re like detectives.” Well, you don’t need to hit me in the head with a brick.

Finally, I get bored easily, so I needed to write books that wouldn’t bore me. And that’s where the “fast-paced” came in. There isn’t a chapter that doesn’t have a little cliffhanger at the end. Even the books end with a little hint that something else is developing somewhere.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Where did you get the name Johnny Denovo for your detective?

ANDREW KENT: “Johnny Denovo” as a name had been kicking around in my head. I liked the cadence of it, and the way it leveraged the Latin for “of the new” into a name that sounded a bit like it belonged to a hipster from an era you couldn’t quite place.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Writing in a genre can be tough because certain expectations arise. Yet you partly turn expectations on their head by having a language-loving detective who seems to have studied semiotics, the study of signs. More specifically, he’s a young scientist specializing in neurobiology with evolutionary insights into the human condition. How did you end up writing mysteries with such an interesting protagonist?

ANDREW KENT: Part of the fun of writing in a genre is playing to or against the constraints and expectations it imposes, I think. Constraints drive creativity for me, so I guess I’m a natural resident of genre fiction. But that doesn’t mean I won’t mess with it.

To figure out how I’d approach the mystery genre, I looked back to Sherlock Holmes, and thought, “What would he be like today, knowing that a detective of physical evidence and deductive reasoning already existed?” And I thought, “He’d be different — he’d be a scientist, he’d be idealistic and young, and he’d be famous.” It really was that simple. Then, since the motif is about how the brain works, I decided to make him a neuroscientist.

The fame part has a few layers to it, and hints at a backstory that readers will get to know more about as they go through the books. In Holmes’ day, fame meant having name recognition and wasn’t as overwhelming as it is now. The media landscape wasn’t as all-consuming. Today, fame is about balancing a famous persona and a private life. If you fail to separate the two, you’re headed for trouble.

In Johnny’s backstory, there’s a reason for him to hide and a set of conditions that make it possible. Also, he believes that being in the spotlight actually makes him safer. He can thrust the Denovo persona into the glare and let his real identity remain in the shadows. When he turns on his fame, nobody can see behind the bright lights. So he uses his fame, manages it, and manipulates it. It’s a tool at times, but something he cultivates for a variety of reasons.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: How does “theme” play into your books? I ask because a “detective of the mind” as you call Denovo, suggests that we are prisoners of our heads, and your detective can read the signs that people unconsciously transmit. If you want to take this question another way, are you aware of any themes in your first drafts, and do you rewrite with theme in mind?

ANDREW KENT: I remember as a kid what is probably a fairly common cathartic moment when I realized that my eyes didn’t see — my brain did. My eyes just detected light waves at certain frequencies and fed the information up for analysis. Then I observed that once I noticed something — a color, a brand of car — I’d suddenly see it everywhere. But my eyes weren’t taking in more or different light — my brain was processing information differently.

I think we do the same things with the information we transmit. There are linguistic and conceptual boundaries we use to define the world, and we prefer some of these as individuals, even as cultures. This is especially true of metaphors, which at a certain level are quite universal since they’re based on physical reality. We learn very basic conceptual metaphors as infants, like over-under, inside-outside, higher-lower, and around-through. We carry these with us throughout life, they gain different meanings like around power or acceptance or style, and we usually prefer one strongly. I personally feel like I act on around-through – that is, can I go around something or do I need to go through it? That can be a conflict, a task, a commitment, or even a source of joy. Sometimes, I find myself going around my family instead of through it. I can become an observer pretty easily, and that basic metaphor drives some of my observer behavior.

I do notice themes in drafts, but try to square them with the metaphors in the story. So I sort of have built-in themes in each novel, based on the metaphors that will be uncovered. And each metaphor has a twist, a way of showing up that’s surprising and the key to the whole shebang. That said, on a character level, I think there’s more laughter in my books than in many mystery or thriller novels because my characters like to tease each other and are pretty sarcastic.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Your love of word play and your love of mysteries brings up the question, Who are your favorite authors and books? Have any been particular inspirations?

ANDREW KENT: Oddly, I really like non-fiction. I find that truth is stranger than fiction, and after having read so many histories and non-fiction accounts of crazy events like shipwrecks and deep sea salvages and survival stories and weird scientific findings, I feel perfectly comfortable writing whatever I want from a plot standpoint. Something stranger has happened in reality, I’m sure.

I like plots that move, that sweep you up, and writing that’s confident and brisk, but with a lot of character shining through. Some thrillers are pure plot, little character, and repetitive dialog. Those turn me off. Give me a nice cast of characters, a satisfying storyline with some real tension, and a confident author, and I’m there.

From a pure writing standpoint, I like writing that makes my head spin a little and phrasing that I can feel in my mouth. Ivan Doig writes that way for me, as does Edward Gibbon in “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Bill Bryson has a deft writing touch, and John McPhee has amazing craft. But I read a lot of writing that makes me envious. I guess that’s a form of learning, once I get over the jealousy.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Mystery fans will want to know are there any particular mystery writers you like. Is there anyone you read no matter what?

ANDREW KENT: Growing up, I read mysteries voraciously, from Sherlock Holmes to Ellery Queen to pre-teen books like the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators and the like. Jupiter Jones has to be one of the greatest character names ever, I just have to interject. Jupiter?! Yet, it works.

Right now, there’s no mystery writer I follow. I actually try to avoid reading mysteries now so I can’t accidentally borrow or mimic someone else. But I have cheated a little, just peeked, really. I read “Dog On It,” which was fun, even if the mystery wasn’t all that complex. And I read a Jack Reacher book just to see what all the fuss was about. I wasn’t that impressed.

I think it’s almost better to stay out of the genre and do my own thing now. I want to be able to honestly claim innocence or ignorance if I ever do something reminiscent of another mystery writer.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: With your intensive job, having a family, promoting the books you have, and writing a new one, where does reading fit in? Are you a fast reader?

ANDREW KENT: I’m a fast reader, and I usually have a small stack of books I’m reading concurrently. It’s rare that I read one book exclusively. I’m not monogamous about my reading habits – I date a lot. I usually read in the morning and before I go to bed. Our household ramps up slowly in the mornings, hits a high level of activity throughout the day, then cools down quickly at night, leaving me an hour or two of time to read, write, and talk with my wife. Also, having a DVR is a lifesaver. I swear, not having to watch television when it’s first broadcast is so sweet. And being able to skip commercials and make a 30-minute show 1/3 shorter? That’s probably an hour a week right there of time shifted from television to reading or writing.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: What is your favorite aspect about your new book, The Green Monster, and can you explain the storyline a little?

ANDREW KENT: There are quite a few things I like about the new book. First, I think the pacing is faster overall, and this after the first book has been routinely called “fast-paced.” It was nice to be able to forgo some introductory material I thought the first book needed to initiate the series. Also, the characters develop, and are established enough that I can introduce new characters. Izzy is a particular favorite, and will return. Finally, I touch on some real-world controversies, in this case, global warming. The story line involves a bio-tech executive in Boston who’s being blackmailed over an affair. There are plenty of twists in that alone, including the fact that eco-terrorists seem to be simultaneously pestering his company with vandalism. Johnny digs into the case, and soon finds that there’s actually a very broad plan at work, and many players with competing interests.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: What’s your favorite source for finding story ideas? Do you outline or do you write by the seat of your pants?

ANDREW KENT: With these books, I feel like I’ve struck oil, creatively speaking. I often start by thinking about which metaphors I want to pursue, and then I do like Johnny, which is to let the request for an answer bake a little in my limbic brain. Soon enough, I find myself with an idea that seems to just bubble up at an unexpected time. And, voila, I have the genesis for a book.

One thing that another writer told me is that mystery writers work backward from the climax of the book, the final scene. I think that’s true, but I hadn’t realized that was how I was working. That may sound odd, but when you have your nose to the grindstone, it’s easy to miss things like that. I usually know I have a book to write when I have a final sequence imagined – it’s very visual, like watching a movie. I have to do the novelization then.

And what I’ve done for this series is notice the metaphors in that climactic scene, then I make these the metaphors for the book.

Writing these final scenes is SO MUCH FUN! It’s about the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. I usually jump up and down for joy and sheer relief once I’ve written the first draft of the final scene. My wife gives me an indulgent smile each time. But it feels so good to know you’ve got a rip-roaring ending all set up and waiting.

For instance, the first book, “Spam & Eggs,” uses the metaphor set of inside-outside. I had the scenes imagined, but then had to stand back and think, “What metaphors are at work here?” Then I knew. Without giving anything away, the climactic scenes are all about inside-outside, as is the twist, the revelation. Once I have the twist and the final scene imagined, all I have to do is set an initial scene and then decide how to get to the ending – tell the story of what happened in between.

To do that, I outline a little early on, but mainly to get a sense of what pieces of scenery will shift and where the crucial moments will be. I also construct a calendar in Word, so I know where people are and when, and make sure it’s all plausible and in the right sequence. Then, once I’ve thought through a bit of the structure and pace, I write by the seat of my pants, often changing things as I go. I find the dialog and interactions work better when I truly follow the characters and let them surprise me. Some of the most rewarding writing I’ve done has been when Mona or Johnny or Tucker have said things or reacted in ways that I didn’t expect.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Your third book is due early next year. What are you discovering about your continuing characters as the series evolves? Do you have plans for any novels outside of this series?

ANDREW KENT: Well, Mona and Johnny have a relationship that’s getting more intense. That’s nice. I had them hook up early since I didn’t want the titillation of “will they or won’t they.” That’s overdone. They’re adults, so they will. Mona’s also not a helpless female, and she’s rather mighty in the third book, I’m finding. She’s getting the hang of the detective shtick. Other characters are developing or coming forward as needs arise, and other relationships are forming. Also, in the third book, the almost telepathic friendship Johnny and Tucker share gets tested. That’s fun.

I have ideas for other books, one in the fantasy genre and one non-fiction. I have initial outlines for the first, and about half an unstructured book for the second. But right now, I’m focused on finishing this little trilogy of Denovo mysteries. Oh, and I have an outline for a prequel for Johnny, a book about the case that changed his life. It’s pretty cool, so I might write that someday, too.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Everything about your books suggests a large publisher created these—from the tight editing to the interior design to the covers. What have you learned along the way?

ANDREW KENT: One reason I self-published is because I’m in product development for a publishing company, and I wanted to see how effective print-on-demand and online marketing from scratch could be. I’m a pragmatist, and you always learn more by doing. Also, I hated the timelines for traditional publishing – it’s way too slow, especially for fiction. I understand publishers are assuming risk, but they can mitigate it by being clever and still be faster, I think. In any event, I’ve learned that from a manufacturing standpoint, print-on-demand has become indistinguishable from offset printing, and actually seems to produce a better product, except for embossed, metallic, and die-cut treatments for covers, which aren’t part of the deal yet. I learned that creating an arresting cover is entirely possible if you’re willing to work for it. I’m lucky in that I have worked as a graphic designer, typesetter, editor, and writer in my career, as well as working as a publisher and product development lead. Doing this was pretty natural for me at this point.

As for the editing, I do a lot of it myself. I revise and revise and revise. The staff at our local copy shop knows when I’m working on a new book because I am constantly making spiral-bound books to edit and revise. I find having something closer to the finished product pushes me to edit it harder. But I have a secret editing weapon that I bring on near the end of each book for an objective, honest critique. Knowing a final edit is coming usually makes me edit the last two drafts all the harder. My goal is to get through one of these final rounds with my secret weapon, and the editing pen remains capped. I never will, but a goal is a goal!

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Is your “secret editing weapon” an editor? Your wife? A friend?

ANDREW KENT: If I told you that, it wouldn’t remain a secret, now would it? Actually, it’s a composite of a few people, and I may add one or two different people for the third book. Working in the publishing industry, I know a lot of people with editing and writing backgrounds, so I have a lot of options. I know that the people who help with this will be happy to know that it shines through.

I think this kind of editorial care is crucial to creating a work readers will enjoy. Books should disappear in your hands, so formatting, paper, size, typeface, and other aesthetic elements matter to the overall experience. But most important is the language – its cadence, velocity, clarity, and diversity. Aside from typos, little things can break the spell of reading, from a writer who repeats words too often to a sentence that blends too many ideas for the reader to keep up – there are so many things that can break the spell.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Your own website reveals that you’re using a pseudonym for writing. When you’re not writing mysteries, you’re an executive with the New England Journal of Medicine as well as a family guy with a wife, children, and dogs. How does writing fit into your life, and why did you decide to write under another name?

ANDREW KENT: Well, I travel a lot for my job, and I don’t sleep well in hotels, so I found that writing was very compatible with mild insomnia and long stretches in airplane seats fighting tedium. Both are good situations for writing.

Also, I have a fairly long commute each day, and I learned that I could solve a plot point or have a creative idea during the commute if I set my brain to work on it when I started driving. In fact, during early drafts, I will purposely end a chapter with a seemingly impossible twist or mildly absurd insight and dare myself to work it out. Most of the time, I find a really nice solution, often surprising myself, something I think helps to make the books so intricate and rewarding from a plot standpoint.

The reason I wrote under a pseudonym was basically because I publish scholarly and professional works under my real name, and I didn’t want the two confused. It’s funny, I picked my pseudonym so that I’d still have the big letters of my signature, which I worked hard on getting right in 8^th grade. I didn’t want to give them up. Plus, in reviews, it sounds much more intimate when a reviewer states, “Kent writes a satisfying, literate, and neatly executed tale of detection.”

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: The covers for your two books are the kind most authors hope for—something magnetic and intriguing. When I first saw them online, I had to click on a larger view just to stare at them. How do they relate to the content inside, and how did you end up with such great covers?

ANDREW KENT: Thanks! The covers have gotten nearly as many compliments as the books themselves. Part of what makes them turn out so well goes back to the metaphorical roots of this series. I know the metaphor I’m trying to convey, and I think humans are drawn in when an image suggests a metaphorical relationship. So, the cover for “Spam & Eggs” shows a finger touching a golden egg, which relates to stories like Midas, the Goose and the Golden Egg, but ultimately suggests the metaphor of the shell and then the egg’s contents. That’s intriguing, and it doesn’t hurt that the artwork is high-contrast, deep shadows, and rich colors. The cover for “The Green Monster” captures the tension of above and below, the metaphors of that book, and the empty setting and sunshine’s glare only isolate that tension. The cover for the third book will deal with the question of around or through. I’ve already designed it, and it’s pretty arresting.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Tell me about your background in publishing and marketing, and how does that help you be a better author, if at all?

ANDREW KENT: Like I mentioned, I’ve been a writer, editor, designer, publisher, product development person, and all that, so I know how to package up content and get it to market. I think that helped me focus on writing instead of spending cycles worrying about how I’d attend to the mechanics and sales. Also, I think I have a good sense of when something is ready, when it’s marketable, so I can use that instinct to know when to stop editing, when to stop writing, and when to let go. It’s hard, because I could keep revising these books ad nauseum, but at some point, you have to let the children leave home.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: How much marketing/publicity do you do? Any advice in this area?

ANDREW KENT: I’m still trying to find what works best. This is probably the hardest part, but also the most guerilla in a way. Each book has had a different mix. I think publishing in the winter is better since people are more interested in books in general. Google Adwords work pretty well. Facebook ads have a lot of potential, but they don’t seem to generate the sales that Google ads do. GoodReads contests seem intriguing, blog tours are great, email lists of friends and fans can help, and signings can raise awareness. Reviews are fun, but don’t seem to help as much as I’d hoped they would. I mean, I’ve gotten incredibly positive reviews, but Dan Brown is still kicking my ass in sales, and that’s just not right!

I probably spend about an hour a week doing actual marketing, much more than that thinking about it and being frustrated about how hard and unsuccessful much of it is.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: You buy Google Adwords for your books? What search words do you buy, and how effective and expensive is using Google Adwords? I once spent $500 for an ad in Foreword magazine, and after it came out, I realized I couldn’t tell its effectiveness.

ANDREW KENT: I use words like “mystery novel” and “boston detective” to describe the Google AdWords hits I’m looking for. There’s a way to get suggestions and term expansion from their system, and I’ve used that, as well. I sometimes think I’m throwing money down a sinkhole, though, because it’s so hard to know what works. I try to measure traffic to my site. Google AdWords seems to drive more traffic than other search engines, but Yahoo! search advertising did well, too. I just stopped spending the money on it.

It is hard to tell its effectiveness, even with all the tracking tools. Ad systems stop at the click, and Google AdWords has this annoying feature that won’t let you display one URL in your ad but have the ad go to a different URL. So, I can’t display the URL of my blog yet have the ad go to my book’s Amazon page when someone clicks on it. I think that’s dumb. But Google does a great job creating multiple sizes of display ads from a simple template, and these ads look good and perform well. I just can’t tell if an ad led to sales. There’s no clear line from ad to click to sale.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

ANDREW KENT: I think I needed to pitch my “I’m going to get rich!” expectations lower. I tried to, but there was a part of me that certainly thought it just might happen, that annoying Pollyanna voice we eternal optimists have.

There’s a formula for happiness, which is reality minus expectations equals happiness. I think the reality of publishing books is that it’s satisfying on a lot of levels, and definitely an accomplishment to be proud of, but quick financial returns are rare even for authors who make the bestseller lists. So, if I were to go back and advise myself, I’d say to focus on the intangible rewards and fun of it, and not expect a quick financial result. And the intangible rewards – being able to ship free e-books to soldiers and be thanked by grateful families; having someone call you out of the blue and tell you how much they liked your book; being asked to sign a copy someone’s brought all the way across the country – those are the moments that I enjoy the most. But I’m also proud when I can take the family to dinner on a small royalty check I received that day.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: The mystery market seems to be huge. What if anything do you do to be a part of that market and appeal to mystery readers? Are your books in mystery bookstores?

ANDREW KENT: Well, I have great timing, if nothing else. I published my first book right as the economic downturn hit, and two local mystery bookstores in the Boston area went under. Other local shops became much more cautious with their money. That said, we have a local bookstore where I live that’s been nothing but great, and that helps. It’s fun to get an email from them requesting more books. That’s a blast.

The mystery community is huge, and I didn’t really know how big beforehand. I’ve made a few connections into it, and want to attend some of the conventions soon. It seems like a great genre with a lot of positives going for it. I’m glad I picked it. But I’ve been too busy to get into it as much as I’d hoped. There’s a great mystery convention near me called CrimeBake. I was hoping to go to that this year, but my job required me to be somewhere else that weekend. There’s another one out on Cape Cod in the spring that I wanted to attend, but life intervened again. And so it goes.

CHRISTOPHER MEEKS: Are you learning anything about your own mind as you continue to write more? What is a truth about you and the human condition?

ANDREW KENT: Tough question! I think one thing the premise of the Johnny Denovo series has taught me is that the limbic brain is a very effective ally for creative people. It’s where thoughts are really created, especially those involving language. People talk about parts of the brain activated as language centers, but expression, functional language, reconciles there. So, I think this has taught me to trust that even more, use it with greater awareness and confidence, and believe in the flow. And I think that’s a truth about the human condition. We’re evolved animals, and we have ancient brains inside the one we normally picture. And those ancient brains are very reliable. So reliable, a detective could make a career unraveling them!

CONTEST: You couldn’t be blamed if the titles for Andrew Kent’s two books — “Spam & Eggs” and “The Green Monster” — brought to mind a favorite children’s book, “Green Eggs & Ham.”

Name the famous Dr. Seuss book that was this author’s favorite when growing up. The first to correctly guess the title will win free, autographed copies of both novels.