Interview With Author Daniel Meyer
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My name is Daniel Meyer, and I’m the author of the Sam Adams books, currently consisting of Credible Threats, Rising Shadows, and Mysterious Ways. I’ve also written four unfinished trunk novels of dubious quality, if that counts. I live in Missouri, USA, and I’m a lover of history, fiction, and medieval weaponry, and as my bio says, I’m an occasional kilt-wearer and a supporter of raccoons. (People have asked me why I’m a “supporter of raccoons,” and all I can tell you is, raccoons just seem to like me for some reason.)
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my latest book is Mysterious Ways, and I’m afraid the second question just doesn’t have an answer. Of all the titles for the Sam Adams books, I think that’s the one that I’ve had the longest; in fact, I’ve had it for so long that I no longer have any idea what inspired it. I suspect I just thought it sounded cool.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I wouldn’t say that it’s UNUSUAL, but I do exactly what you’re NOT supposed to do, and wander away from my manuscript to surf the internet or scroll social media. And I have to say, it actually helps me. While occasionally it steals my focus from what I’m supposed to be doing, more often what happens is that I find myself in need of a break, so I’ll hop onto another window for a few minutes, to read about one of the countless niche topics I’m interested in or see what the latest social media drama is. That lets me recharge, and get back to work with fresh eyes.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
It depends; the things that influence me depend on what I’m writing and what I’m trying to achieve with it. When I tried to write a couple of horror novels once upon a time (see the reference to “trunk novels of dubious quality”) I was mainly influenced by Kevin Williamson, screenwriter of Scream, as well as R.L. Stine. The Sam Adams books are mainly influenced by Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, but other writers, like Shane Black, screenwriter of Lethal Weapon, and adventure journalist Robert Young Pelton, influenced Sam’s narrative voice as well. In fact, many of the influences on Sam Adams come from the screen rather than novels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, John Wick, Indiana Jones, Die Hard, James Bond, Banshee, Veronica Mars, The Raid, even comedies like Psych, Gilmore Girls, and Brooklyn 99. In more recent years, I’ve even noticed a little P.G. Wodehouse creeping in.
And I should mention Bernard Cornwell, whose spectacular knack for writing action sequences has deeply influenced my own, in probably everything I’ve ever written.
What are you working on now?
Nothing at the moment, I’m too busy with book launch stuff for Mysterious Ways; however, I have two WIPS that I’m going to dive back into very soon. One is Sam Adams book four, Death Follows, which I’m really looking forward to. The other will be my first foray into epic fantasy, a book called The Shattered Crown that will be the first novel in The Voice in the Mist trilogy.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I think it has to be participating in sales. I’ve been in a few, and they’ve always lead to a major uptick in sales, albeit at a discounted rate. I should also probably mention Bluesky, where my follower count has increased dramatically since I joined up.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
One, you need persistence. The most important thing is to write consistently, which is tough to do when you first start out. You need to carve out time in your schedule, but you probably won’t succeed right away, and when that happens, you have to keep after it. Once you establish a routine, you’ll start seeing real progress. My advice is to just use some of the time you would have killed on the internet anyway. And when you do carve out time, you have stick with it, and not give up when you get stuck or distracted. With every book I’ve written, there’s been a moment where I’ve been shocked to realize the tremendous amount of writing I still have left to do, and you can’t let that get to you. Don’t be afraid to get into the proverbial deep waters. (It helps to go into it with a tentative word count and at least a basic idea of the plot in mind.) I hope I haven’t made things sound too grim; indeed, I think it’s the opposite. I suspect the more you write, the more you’ll WANT to write.
Two, DON’T make the mistake I made and wait too long to join social media, set up a website, etc. I always figured that that stuff would just distract me from the actual writing, and could wait until I had something to publish. What I should have done was to get my name out there much sooner, networking, letting potential readers know about my book, and generally building more hype. As it happened, I had to start from too far behind.
Three, don’t just plunk the first thing you write onto Amazon and hope for the best. If you really want to nail this, and stand out from the pack, go over and over your manuscript, rewriting and revising it, fleshing things out, throwing in new ideas, snipping out extraneous stuff, and fixing all the problems you find, in addition to doing obvious stuff like fixing typos. Don’t be afraid to go back and rewrite something that doesn’t work, even if it’s frustrating, or to swap out an existing scene with something new, if you come up with a better version. You’d be amazed at how much you can improve your story by doing minor things like changing the order of events or just adding or subtracting a few lines. Keep revising until you’re completely exasperated and out of ideas, and that brings us to my next point…
Four, hire a legit editor and cover artist. Avoid scammers, amateurs, and other ne’er-do-wells of the literary world. (Sidebar: never pay anyone for a review.) Do some research ahead of time; make sure that a prospective editor/artist is reliable and a good fit for what you’re looking for. Don’t hire someone who will use AI to make your cover, I promise it won’t look as good as the real thing. Hire the best people you can, even if they’re expensive, even if it takes longer than you’d prefer to get on their schedule. Find someone you can build a good rapport with, because that’s invaluable. With your editor specifically, at least be willing to listen to their advice, and generally lean towards taking it. Try and avoid being the stereotypical writer who thinks everything they type is genius, and refuses to change anything. I can understand being skeptical of someone changing your story, but I suspect if you look at things objectively, you’ll usually see your editor is right, and their changes would improve the story. That was certainly my experience. Conversely, if there’s something you feel very strongly about, it IS okay not to take their advice. In any case, your book one hundred percent needs to have an editor. Do not, do not, do not publish something unedited; an editor can spot all sorts of problems that you can’t, and having one will greatly improve your manuscript. I can’t speak to cover art as much, as that’s far outside my area of expertise, but your book needs an eye-catching cover to entice potential readers. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” definitely does not apply here.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
It came from a series of blog posts by Jim Butcher, who took it from his writing teacher Deborah Chester. It describes how, to escape your story’s “great swampy middle,” when you know how it ends but don’t know how to get there, you should write what is, essentially, a climax in the middle of your book, something that all the threads from the first half build up to and all the ones in the second half spin out of.
That helped me tremendously when I was writing Credible Threats, because I was having the exact “great swampy middle” problem that he’d alluded to. I used the technique again for Rising Shadows, and TRIED to use it for Mysterious Ways, but I ended up reworking various scenes and so the “great swampy middle” incident actually takes place later in the book, and the finished product ends up resembling a more traditional three-act structure.
What are you reading now?
Odyssey by Stephen Fry.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Once all the various book launch responsibilities and promo stuff wraps up, I’m going to go back into the manuscript for Death Follows and write up a scene that’s been on my mind lately. After that, I’m going to reread my outline again, and decide whether to start work on a full new draft, or work on The Shattered Crown for a while.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I think I would have to go with some of my old favorites that are always good for a reread: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell, Timeline by Michael Crichton. Alternately, being stranded on a desert island would give me the time to reread the Red Rising series, which I’ve always wanted to do but never had time for, since there are always so many more books vying for my attention.
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