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Are you interested in becoming a self-published author and getting paid to write while establishing a loyal fan-base? ✨
This week I had a really cool interview with Aaron Olson, who recently published his first book, The Kids From Yesterday!
In this interview, you’ll learn:
- How Aaron became a self-published author and got into writing
- Aaron’s writing routine and tips he has for aspiring authors
- Resources he relied on to keep the ideas flowing
- …and more!
I hope you’ll find this interview as useful as I did! ❤️
Tell me your story. How old are you, where do you come from, and what inspired you to become a self-published author?
As of right now I am 31. Born in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
I chose the self published route because I know how hard it is to just find an agent. Never mind a publishing deal. I looked into Kindle Direct Publishing. Researched it. It just felt right to self publish. Get my words out there.
Tell me more about the process behind writing your first novella, The Kids From Yesterday? Where did your idea come from?
The Kids From Yesterday was a total accident.
At the time I was working on this Las Vegas paranoia conspiracy story. I spent about a year on it. It dealt with some dark subject matters. It could be depressing, dark and not fun to think about all the time. Now everyday I will write about 500 words of nonsense to help me warm up before I write for my main ideas.
So after writing such depressing stuff for so long, I decided one day for fun I was going to write this high school story. Something a little more light hearted.
That first night I wrote about two thousand words. Characters were born, ideas were brewing. I spent an entire year on this paranoia project. Wrote about 130 pages and abandoned it all for this new high school coming of age project.
Tell us more about The Kids From Yesterday and what it is about.
It was originally just going to be a short sweet high school love story but the more I wrote the more darkness creeped in. There’s a lot of silliness, goofiness, light hearted moments throughout the story but underneath it there’s some heavy shit in there.
I realized I was writing about how violent America continues to be. What was originally a love story of two students suddenly turned into how tragedy turned a young boy into who he becomes later in life.
A young boy witnessing 9/11 live during school hours. Then later in high school witnessing and surviving a school shooting.
It became a story about a young boy who grew up always being asked who he was and what he wanted and never figured it out till after these tragedies.
It became about overcoming the unexpected. Dealing with life. And letting those pains help you grow into who you are.
I always picture my novella as Linklater’s Dazed And Confused if it were set in the 90’s and 2000’s that deal with some heavy material.
Some writers like to write only in the early morning, while some like to write standing (like Ernest Hemingway), or in the same physical space. What is your routine as a writer, if you have one?
At the moment I do not have a strict writing routine. I don’t wait for inspiration and the creative juices to flow through my blood. You gotta put on your war paint and crawl in the mud. Just get at it. Sometimes my best sentences were written when I felt the least inspired to write.
However I will say I do find myself at my best in the late hours of the night when the house is quiet.
I would prefer a more strict routine. But with how my current life is it is a bit trickier.
There’s no set place for me to write too. Everyday is a bit different for me. Some days I write at my little desk in my room. Most days I just write in my bed. I sit up on my bed and type away on the laptop. Some nights when I’m noggin off into dreamworld I’ll want to get my 500 words in and just lay in my bed with all the lights off and type away.
When it’s summer I try to write outside. Or go to a place to sit with fresh air and sunshine. But its best in my room isolated with no distractions.
Since publishing, what are some ways you have brought traffic to your book?
Right now I have been mainly using Instagram. I tried getting into TikTok but I’m not meant to be in front of a camera doing weird shit just to get attention. Ha ha! We’re writers. Not circus animals.
I’m sure it works for other writers and they enjoy participating in those TikTok “booktok” trends to help gain followers/sells. Unfortunately I just don’t see myself able to do that.
YouTube and podcasts is something I should look into more. And Doing more interviews.
What do you love and appreciate about being a writer?
I love everything about it. The whole process is fun and nerve racketing. To sit alone and just day dream is a beautiful thing. Seeing your vision come to life is a remarkable feeling. There’s endless possibilities with writing.
I was originally a filmmaker and it was a constant struggle writing because everything I would come up with would be near impossible to film. Especially on a shoe string budget.
With writing books, everything is endless and pure magic. There no limitations. Its a great feeling getting your thoughts and words and visions on paper.
Holding your own paperback is just…come on!
Any tips for becoming a better writer?
Not sure if there’s anything new to say. So I’ll just say the cliche stuff. Not just because its cliché but because it actually works.
Read more. Read. Read books. Read scripts. Read read read.
Then write. Write. Write. Write dog shit. I don’t care as long as you are writing. Write write write!
Watch movies. Watch gameplays of engaging video games if you’re not a gamer.
Games to study for great story telling would be The Last Of Us. Part I and II.
And Red Dead Redemption 2.
There are many many great video games with stories but these three are some of the best ever. A writer could learn a lot from these. We’re living in different times. Video games are now an art. If you’re a writer who isn’t a gamer but enjoys horror, westerns, great characters, villains, please go watch gameplays of these titles.
Something I struggled in the beginning is that I was too afraid to write shitty. I spent and wasted too much time trying to perfect sentences, story ideas, characters and the perfect first draft.
No matter what your first book, short, novella, whatever it is, it will be shit and thats okay.
Its okay to steal your favorite authors style. Write like your favorite author. Write thousand word stories and steal from your favorite books.
Just get in the habit of telling a good story and eventually your own voice will slowly start to shine.
Try writing different styles. Maybe you won’t actually prefer writing in your favorite authors style. Because you’re not them. You want your writing to come off as YOU. Not Stephen King. Not JK Rowling. People want the next King book from King. Not YOU. We want the next YOU. Be the next YOU.
So my tip would be steal their styles while writing these short little stories for practice and see which style you enjoy and just go off on it. Eventually you’ll find your own voice.
Tell me more about the business elements of being a self-published author. What are the costs associated with it?
Being self published without an agent basically means you’re paying for everything.
Editor, copy editor, format editor, cover design, and advertisements.
With my novella, I paid around 800 bucks in total for all editing and cover design. I went through Fiverr for everything.
Do you have a target audience, and did you have any expectations regarding the potential revenue of this book?
While writing the novella I didn’t really think of an audience at all. I just kept focusing on the characters and trying to tell the best story to my abilities. When it came to releasing it I wanted an audience that appreciated coming of age stories.
I really had no expectations. I would have been happy if I only sold ten copies. or at least one copy to a complete stranger who wasn’t a friend or family member.
A lot of people say writing takes a long time, and most people do not succeed in finishing a story. What helped you stick to it to the very end?
It certainly does take a long time. You could come up with the perfect story idea in your head within ten minutes. But writing the beginning, middle and end, with fleshed out characters, takes a bit of time. You may have all this in your head but its not as easy as it may seem to just let it all out of you.
Sometimes you end up having scenes in your head that feel like they would end up being pages and pages of content only to end up as a half page. Writings funny that way.
I could have pages of notes on a particular scene which ends up with a half page of content, meanwhile I could have a sentence from my notes and end up writing 4 thousand words. Just writing pages and pages from a single line from my notes.
Like I said earlier, I had a whole other project I was working on before abandoning it. That story began at the very beginning of the COVID lockdowns. Lockdown year 2 I began working on The Kids From Yesterday. So I was not at work.
But despite that, I found myself busy with other stuff during the days. I was only able to write late in the nights. 3-5 AM. 4-7 AM. It wasn’t ideal. But it worked. I would write about 500-1500 words a night. Then during afternoons I would walk and think about the new scenes. Write notes in my phone.
What helped me stick to the finished product was that I realized what I was really writing about while halfway through the first draft and the main characters motivations. I had crystal clear ideas for everything. It just all came together.
Now that I’m back at work I still find myself doing most of my writing late in the nights. Ha ha!
What are some tools and tech you used to write this book from start to end?
I wrote notes on my iPhones notepad.
And I wrote the manuscript on my iMac laptop with the Pages app.
Another tip/note to remember, don’t worry about spelling and grammar. I spent a lot of time refining my spelling and grammar while writing and it stilted my creative juices. All that can be fixed later. Your editor will fix all those mistakes anyway!
Keep the juices flowing! WRITE and keep on WRITING!
What have been the most influential artists that inspired you into becoming a self-published author, if any?
Nothing really inspired me to be a ‘self published’ author. It sorta just felt the right way to go about it. I would love to go the tradition route with an agent and getting a publisher deal.
But What inspires my writing specifically though is a lot.
Just to name a few artist.
Paul Thomas Anderson
Cormac McCarthy
Thomas Pynchon
Quentin Tarantino
Kevin Smith
Richard Linklater
Jim Jarmusch
Stanley Kubrick
Stephen King
David Lynch
Gerard Way
Charles Bukowski
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors who are just starting?
If you want to write, just write! Write fan fiction. Write the sequel to the movie you wanted to see.
Don’t worry about sales. Don’t worry about becoming famous. Don’t worry about being good. Just write.
Read a lot. Read scripts, novellas, short stories, watch tv, watch movies. Look into your favorite authors/writers. See who influenced them. You may find your new favorite author. Or a book you never heard about from an authors favorite author. You’ll be down a rabbit hole full of new content ready and waiting to be consumed by you.
Write about your day. Write your day out in a journal as if you were the villain in your story. How would Voldemort write about your day? Or Jack from The Shining?
What are your future plans? Any „sequels“ we should watch out for?
Right now I’m working on a couple of projects. Not sure what will happen. I would love to release a couple more novellas. Maybe a short story collection.
No sequel for The Kids From Yesterday. I think it works best as a stand alone.
For more updates from Aaron, follow his Instagram – avoart_life!
Have you enjoyed reading this Q&A? Let me know in the comments below! ❤️