Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I wrote my first story for fun when I was seven or eight. I started my first book at sixteen, and started writing regularly in my early twenties. In the last nine years, I’ve written eleven books, and had a blast doing it! What started it was my love for reading and the awesome and weird books I’ve read (mostly Goosebumps and Hardy Boys by age eight) that were a persistent inspiration for me. Writing will always be my passion… but to make ends meet, I work at the Omaha Zoo as a busser, and I’ve also interned there as a keeper in the jungle. What a fun experience! That is a true calling- but writing books has been and will always be my true passion.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The last book I completed (Book 11) is called The Worthy One, about two families that join forces (the Kala’s and the Dzako’s… where did I get that from?) to create armor, weapons, and items blessed by Father Kala, the patriarch and professor at the University of Athens in Golden Age-era Greece. What inspired it? A little idea- I was playing a game called Oblivion and discovered you could create custom-made items and name them, so I named them after the family. I had an idea to write a book that the Kalantjakos’ made powerful items in ancient times of danger and magic. The Worthy One was great fun to write… I hope it’s just as fun to read.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not so unusual- but something that helps me get a book going until I have more content to go on is to put something in the very beginning of the book to get myself going, like story brainstorming or ‘this book is going to be awesome because…’ It helps set the tone of the rest of the book.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I stand on the shoulders of giants… and probably do a poor job of doing it. My influences include Ray Bradbury, the Herberts of the Dune series, Arthur Clarke, Stephen Hawking, Stephen King, and Robert Heinlein, whose Stranger in a Strange Land is close to being the greatest work of fiction ever written.
What are you working on now?
A currently title-less book about the human race coming into contact with a superior intelligence that treats them like pets: people are plucked as they stand, by mysterious funnels that appear out of nowhere, to live like dogs with their echymalian masters in their homes. Naturally, this causes an uproar. Man must soon learn to turn His eye on himself and realize his hypocrisy: now that He is no longer top dog… how does He like it?
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far, I’ve really only tried Twitter (the account I made in my character’s name).
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Google it.
Whatever you want to know… Google it. That’s how I got published and how I’m researching how to promote it. It may sound lazy… but Google exists to serve. Use it.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“If writers were businessmen, they’d have the sense not to be writers.”
Well no duh, because they’d do business… they wouldn’t write.
What are you reading now?
The Odyssey by Homer.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I won’t stop writing any time soon, but I’ve written enough to go on. I have a nice portfolio and now I must really hunker down and promote and shove it down the world’s throat. Nobody will give a damn otherwise.
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?
Stranger in a Strange Land
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Martian Chronicles
2001: A Space Odyssey
Jon Kalantjakos’s Social Media Links
Twitter Account