February 11, 2025 • 46 mins
JD Barker knows how to write a best seller and understand the process of selling and publishing one's own work. In this episode, packed with tips and advice, he shares his inspiring journey from ghostwriter to bestselling author, emphasizing the importance of personal branding and collaboration in storytelling. He discusses the evolving landscape of publishing, the influence of AI, and his exciting upcoming projects, providing valuable insights for aspiring authors. Tune it to get the the insights on:
JD's transition from a finance job to full-time writing
Insights on personal branding and audience building
Importance of collaboration in the writing process
Role of AI in creative endeavors and its limitations
and all about his upcoming book projects, their themes, and the journey from page to screen.
To find out more about J.D go to his website:
Thanks for listening! Follow us on X, Instagram and Facebook and on the podcast's official site www.theheartofshowbusiness.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alexia Melocchi (00:04):
Welcome to the heart of show business.
I am your host, alexia Melocchi.
I believe in great storytellingand that every successful
artist has a deep desire toexpress something from the heart
to create a ripple effect inour society.
Emotion and entertainment areclosely tied together.
Emotion and entertainment areclosely tied together.
My guests and I want to giveyou insider access to how the
(00:28):
film, television and musicindustry works.
We will cover.
Dreams come true, the road lesstraveled journey beginnings and
a lot of insight andinspiration in between.
I am a successful film andtelevision entrepreneur who came
to America as a teenager topursue my show business dreams.
Are you ready for someunfiltered real talk with
(00:50):
entertainment visionaries fromall over the world?
Then let's roll sound andaction.
Hello to all my listeners of theHeart of Show Business podcast.
You know I haven't been doingas many episodes as I like to
lately, but whenever I have aguest on, it's for a very, very
(01:14):
special reason and when Idiscovered this incredible,
worldwide renowned New YorkTimes bestseller author and some
of his books and his trajectoryof his career you know, going
from obviously publishing withsome of the biggest publishing
houses to doing it on his ownand pivoting and still
(01:38):
succeeding at it and, of course,having some of his books
already sold to major studios tobe made into features, I told
myself I have to bring thisgentleman on.
So I have with me here JDBarker.
He is a New York Timesbestselling author.
His books have been publishedworldwide with some of the
(01:58):
biggest publishing homes.
He was a journalist before.
He was writing for a lot ofmagazines, doing celebrity
interviews, and then, you know,he went into, I think, into the
indie publishing world back in2014.
So I think it's way before weall caught up into this.
(02:19):
And you know his novel Dracowas sold, of course, into the
studios.
He's collaborating with some ofthe greats, like James Patterson
.
He has another thriller calledthe Fourth Monkey.
He's been with HarperCollins.
I mean, you just have to lookhim up.
He is a powerhouse in thethriller supernatural horror.
(02:41):
You know, true, not I don'tthink it's true crime, but crime
space.
I haven't read all your book,pardon me, because I went.
It would take me five months toread them.
So pardon me for not beingfully up to speed, but you are
my kind of author, so welcome tomy show, jd.
J D Barker (02:58):
Well, thanks for having me.
I'm gonna have to bring youalong everywhere I go and you
can just introduce me at the,you know, at the, at the opening
of the room when I walk in.
Alexia Melocchi (03:05):
that was perfect it's my little Hollywood
pizzazz.
You know, when you're aproducer and you have to pitch
something in a room, it's like,okay, can we put the highlight
reel?
And just like, really like usethe buzzwords and just like get
people intrigued, right?
So yes, I'm full hire it's fun.
J D Barker (03:22):
it's fun hearing it like that, because you know, to
me like it just it went by in ablur, but you know, you
basically just summed up thelast 30 years of my life.
Alexia Melocchi (03:32):
Exactly, and because I want people to be
curious about you.
I mean, I find it so boringwhen people start reading off a
thing and they're like, oh, andthis, and he did that, so what's
the point?
You're going to be on my show,you're going to talk about it,
which is so fantastic, you know.
(03:57):
So I want to hear a little bitabout your origin story, because
, of course, you started out anauthor, I'm going to write books
, and why did you also chooseall this very dark, dark genres,
let's put it this way.
J D Barker (04:12):
Well, I, you know, like a lot of the people in your
audience, you know I've beenwriting pretty much my whole
life.
It was kind of my go to, youknow, just to keep myself sane.
It was, you know, something Ijust did for fun and my parents
encouraged that portion of it.
You know, writing was afantastic hobby in their eyes
but they kind of drilled home.
You know, writing is great for,you know, fun activity but you
can't make a living at it so youhave to get a real job, you
(04:34):
know.
So I kind of.
You know that's sort of how Ispent the first half of my life.
You know, I went to high school, finished that up, went to
college, ended up getting adegree in finance, another one
in business, another one in IT,I got halfway through a
psychology degree.
Then I ended up working in thefinance industry and through all
of that, you know, I would comehome and I would write.
And one of my first jobs Iworked for BMG Distribution,
(04:56):
which was a division of RCARecords down in Fort Lauderdale
in Miami.
That was essentially aglorified babysitter, so they
would have a recording artistcome into town and I'd have to
pick them up at the airport, getthem to the radio station for
their interview, get them totheir concert, get them to their
hotel and then get them back ontheir airplane when it was time
to go.
And you know, meanwhile I wasgoing to college during the
daytime, which is expensive.
So I quickly realized I've gotsome very famous people in the
(05:19):
car with me.
You know they're a captiveaudience, sometimes for four or
five days at a time.
So I started to interview themand then I would take those
interviews and sell them tomagazines like 17 and teen
people and teen beat and youknow all these other magazines
that were huge back in thenineties that are probably gone
now.
Um, but when you work in thatworld, when you work for
newspapers and magazines, youquickly realize everybody you're
(05:40):
working with has a novel atsome stage of development.
It's in a desk drawer somewhere.
They've been working on it forthe last 10 years.
It's almost done.
It's 400,000 words.
You know they're just they're,yeah, they're kind of lost, but
I was very good with grammar andpunctuation.
So initially people would justhand me those books and ask me
to just kind of go through itand, you know, clean it up for
them, which I love doing.
(06:00):
It was fun, and that thatturned into providing
developmental advice andultimately it turned into a side
hustle as a career, as a bookdoctor and a ghostwriter.
So you know, I was working infinance, you know, after I got
out of college.
Ultimately I was a chiefcompliance officer at a
brokerage firm, which is ashorrible as it sounds, but it's
one of those jobs that paysreally good.
(06:20):
So I was kind of kind of stuckand then I would come home and I
would work on these otherprojects at night and over 20
some years I ended up with sixdifferent books that hit the New
York Times list that all hadother people's names on the
cover that I had essentiallywritten, which gets really old
after a while.
So when that six one hit up, mywife pulled me aside and she
said Listen, I know you want tobecome a full time author.
(06:41):
Let's figure out a way to makethis happen.
But we were kind of trapped,you know, because I had the big
salary, we had a big house, wehad cars, we had a boat.
You know our monthly expenseswere, you know, somewhere around
$10,000 to $12,000.
So we couldn't just walk awayfrom all that.
So she came up with this crazyplan.
We sold everything that weowned, we bought a duplex in
Pittsburgh, rented out one sideand lived in the other, and she
(07:02):
sat me down at the kitchen tableone day and showed me the bank
statement and said, okay, thisis our savings.
It looks like you have about 18months to make it as a writer
go, and I know that's a lot ofstuff, but you know that that's
essentially where I kicked offmy my career as a full time
author.
You know it's 20 some years inthe making and overnight,
overnight success.
Alexia Melocchi (07:22):
Wow, that is so inspiring.
I mean just that alone.
I'm going we hit a home run onthis one.
I mean, first of all, there'sone thing that I've seen as a
little bit of a common threadfor a lot of people who have
been successful in theircreative endeavors is that they
do have a little bit of abusiness experience, and I am
(07:43):
sure that having worked in thefinancial and business world
also helped you think okay, Iwrote this book.
Now how do I sell it?
How do I pitch it to obviouslyat the beginning, to a
publishing home?
Or how do I build a brand sothat I can get readers, so that
I can demonstrate to people thatmy books are good?
(08:04):
Because you know, we all know,back in the day we did not have
algorithms, we did not have, youknow, social media as much as
we do today.
So how did you, once youstarted, getting your first
publishing deals which I'm sureyou made it before the deadline,
I would think, hopefully andhow did you build the audience?
(08:25):
Your, your publishing house canonly do so much right.
So how did you go about it?
Because I know you spoke aboutpersonal branding, um, in your
talking points, and I'd love toknow a little bit how you
incorporated your businessstructure into your creative
path well working in the musicbusiness.
J D Barker (08:46):
You know it's a very similar model to books and I
saw a lot of people come and go.
I saw a lot of the mistakesthat they made and I saw what
worked and what didn't work.
One of the things that hasstuck with me my entire life one
of the people that Iinterviewed was Madonna.
Back in the day when she wastouring for Vogue and we talked
about her album promotion andshe said that whenever she had a
new album coming out, she wouldmake a list of what she saw
(09:08):
everybody else doing at the timeand then, when she finished
that list, she would makeanother list of things nobody
was doing.
And that's essentially what shedid to promote her book.
I've always thought of it aszigging instead of zagging.
So you know everybody else iszigging, so you want to zag, you
want to do something that'sgoing to make you stand out.
So that's always been abenchmark in everything I do
from a marketing standpoint.
But essentially, I mean Istarted in the same place that
(09:33):
everybody else did.
I had zero people on my mailinglist.
I had zero followers on thesocial media platforms.
You know you start off with one, two, 10, 20, 100, 1000.
And it just kind of grows overtime.
Each book that I put out is aconscious decision on my part to
kind of expand my audience.
You know I tend to bouncearound in genres.
If you read my Wikipedia page,I think it sums me up the best
and it was crafted withparticular language in mind.
(09:54):
It says I'm a suspense authorwho may also include elements of
horror, of sci-fi, of this andof that.
And we did that on purpose,because a lot of times when I do
an interview, you know, evenlike this one, the first place a
reporter goes to is thatWikipedia page.
So it basically defines who Iam as a, as an author.
It gives them talking pointsfrom an author standpoint by
bouncing around in genres.
(10:14):
I'm almost like a literary PiedPiper, you know.
Like my first couple of books,you know, I was told by my
publishers my audience was women, 45 and over, and I said that's
great.
Now how do I get a differentaudience?
You know not that I want to, Idon't want to replace them, I
want to add to it.
So I wrote a book that was veryheavily young adult, you know,
(10:35):
to grab that younger crew Iwrote a prequel to Dracula, for
Bram Stoker's family to rope inthe horror authors or the horror
readers.
So I'm always looking at eachproject.
You know how is this going toexpand my audience and bring
back into the fold?
And, as a writer, as long as youhave a common thread, you know
like in my case it's suspense.
You know all of my books kindof have that same look and feel
to them, the same kind of pacing.
You know I can branch off alittle bit and people will
follow along, and it's not aformula that I invented.
(10:58):
You know I studied the big nameauthors very closely.
I studied Stephen King, Istudied James Patterson, dean
Koontz, like all these.
You know Nora Roberts, allthese people that were selling a
ridiculous amount of books tofigure out.
You know what they were doingand how.
You know these are the nameswhere you walk into a bookstore
you see their title on the coverand you don't really care what
the book is about.
You just buy it because it'sthem.
That's where I wanted to see mycareer go, so literally
(11:20):
everything I've done has beentowards that as the end goal.
Alexia Melocchi (11:24):
Wow, and you did make it within the deadline.
Right that your wife gave you,Did you I?
J D Barker (11:30):
did.
Yeah, I think I.
I don't think I've ever misseda deadline.
I'm autistic, which issomething we can talk about if
you want to, but that's alwayskind of been there.
If you put a problem in frontof an autistic person, we can't
do anything else until we getthat done.
So a book deadline is has neverbeen a problem for me.
Alexia Melocchi (11:45):
That is so, you know, and this is absolutely.
I mean that that is definitelysomething to talk about.
I did have a guest before.
His name is Matthew Kenslow,who is autistic, and he, he put
himself through school and ittook him, you know, years to go
over and over again.
But he was like I am, I amgoing to be a scientist, I'm
(12:06):
going to teach, I'm going to goand inspire kids, and I mean the
most amazing challenges.
It was never say die and and,and you know, he approached
everything a little bit likeyou're talking about it.
It was in a very analytical way.
It's like seeing it on a chart,you know, like how, in minority
report, you see the people thatare like looking at things and
(12:27):
moving them around.
That's exactly how he plannedhis life and he planned his
career, you know, and everythinghe wanted to do the sciences,
the teaching, the degrees andeverything.
And I would think you know whenpeople say artists, autism is
not a handicap, autism is aspecial ability.
I always say that as far aswhat I'm interpreting it as.
(12:50):
So tell me a little bit aboutthat.
I mean, was there and was thereanybody who turned you down
because of it, or no?
J D Barker (12:59):
No, I mean essentially, you know, like my
social skills have always beenterrible.
I wasn't diagnosed with autismuntil I was 22.
So I didn't know what was goingon.
I just knew I had trouble, youknow, being around other people
and socializing.
But once I got that diagnosis,you know, again, it was a
problem that somebody could putin front of me that could be
solved, you know.
So I started to research autism.
I was diagnosed with somethingcalled Asperger's.
(13:20):
So I, you know, researched thatin particular and you know,
once I was able to do that, Icould, you know I, very similar
to what I do with books, I madea pro and cons list.
You know, these are thenegatives that this creates for
me.
Here are the positives itcreates for me.
And I doubled down on thepositives, one of the things
(13:44):
that I learned later.
You know, as an autistic person,you know we tend to mimic the
other people in certainsituations.
You know, it's kind of how weget through life.
You know, to give you anexample, if I'm standing at a
party with four or five friendsand somebody cracks a joke, I
may not find it funny, but I'mgoing to laugh, you know, a
millisecond later becauseeverybody else is laughing.
I basically copy what I seehappening around me to try and
appear as normal as possible,which is a silly thing to have
to say out loud, but that'sessentially what's going on, you
(14:06):
know, in an autistic person'shead.
So mimicking is something I'vebeen doing my entire life.
And what I didn't realize is,you know, I said, when I was
working as a ghostwriter, I wasactually mimicking other authors
and one of the skills that itgives me is I can read, you know
, like a couple paragraphs, acouple chapters written by
somebody else.
I can pick up on their writingstyle and their cadence and
their vocabulary and I can mimicthat writing style which, you
(14:29):
know, at the time I was in highdemand as a ghostwriter because
I could write a memoir forsomebody else, but in their
voice, you know.
So that's a skill I've kind ofcarried over.
Now that I'm writing fiction,you know, it just adds a little
bit more authenticity, I think,to my characters, because each
voice is very different.
They're very real people to mewhen I put them down on paper.
So you know, just like anythingelse, I just kind of looked at
(14:50):
what's working, what's not, andthen, you know, try to focus on
the good stuff.
Alexia Melocchi (14:54):
Well, you're doing fantastic here, to begin
with, and you already picked uplike the style of of my own
podcast.
And you know, one of themantras of my own podcast is
talent takes you places, mindsettakes you everywhere, which I
do believe that, and youliterally embody that.
And and I am now I'm going tohave to pick up all your books,
(15:15):
as if I don't have enough time,but I'm going to have to read up
all your books.
As if I don't have enough time,but I'm going to have to read
them because I'm totallyintrigued.
And bringing it back to thebooks, when you write, is there
a thought in the back of yourhead I want to see this into a
movie or a series.
Or do you just write the bookfor the pure pleasure of writing
it and then, if it gets soldlike quite a few have of yours,
(15:39):
great.
If it doesn't, it's not a dealbreaker.
J D Barker (15:43):
Like, do you think about seeing the visuals of your
stories when you I've beentrying to figure out Hollywood
from the beginning and like, themore I look at it, the more
confusing it actually gets.
Every one of my books have beenoptioned, with the exception of
my very first one.
It's got a tie into StephenKing and because of the
legalities of all that, you know, the lawyers tend to tell the
(16:04):
studios just to take a step back.
It's just not worth the trouble.
But every other one that I'vewritten has gotten optioned.
And it's funny because I wrotea book called A Caller's Game
and at that point I think I hadfive options that were already
in play.
And when I wrote that book likeI consciously tried to write a
book that couldn't be filmed.
I'm like I'm going to makesomething that they can't, even
just to see what happens.
And then the book came out andRidley Scott's company picked it
(16:26):
up right away.
We had talent tied to it rightaway.
You know I blow up like half ofNew York in this book and I
just I figured that it's justnot going to happen.
But you know, it just literallyjust comes down to a budgeting
thing.
It's like, yes, we can film it.
It's going to be a $200 millionproject, but it can be, it can
be done, you know.
So even that one's movingforward.
I think what happens is for melike when I write, you know, I
(16:48):
basically create characters tothe point where they they are
very real people and I take themand I drop them into one, you
know, into the plot, I drop theminto a scenario.
But because they're real peopleto me, I can watch them and
they can basically dictate theiractions.
So I'm more or less watching amovie playing out in my head and
I'm writing it down as fast asI can when it's working.
That's essentially what it'slike.
(17:08):
The side effect of that is thewords.
You know, the book itself isvery cinematic.
So I think, when the folks inHollywood, when they read it,
you know just, it feels like amovie and you know just, it
feels like a movie and you'relike, if you read a lot of my
reviews, you're going to see,you know a lot of them, people
point that out.
They're like this was likewatching a movie, this was like
watching a movie.
Um, so I guess that's theoutcome of it and the, you know
(17:37):
the.
The bonus is that the folks inHollywood tend to grab those.
Um, you know, to me that's anumbers game, you know, I just I
put my head down and I justwrite the next book.
You know, sooner or later Ithink something's going to get
done.
Alexia Melocchi (18:03):
Yeah, yeah, and I think it's also because
you're getting sold to thepowerful guys, and nothing
against them, because of course,when you're dealing with
companies like Ridley Scott orParamount or whatever, it's
definitely an asset to your ownpersonal brand, but they have so
much going on sometimes andthey can only get green lights,
so many projects at any giventime, especially when they're
expensive.
The indie producers whounfortunately may not have
enough cash to pay for thosebook purchases or book auctions
because they have to basicallygo out and hassle.
(18:24):
Sometimes some of those filmsget made a little quicker.
I mean I've seen that happeneven with the Last Legion or
Valerio Manfredi.
I mean obviously it was theWeinsteins, but you know he's
Alexander the Great was optionedby.
You know he's Alexander theGreat was optioned by.
Well, it was first optioned byreally Scott's company that went
into Baz Luhrmann's company,that went from Universal to Fox
(18:47):
and they hired a writer thatthey didn't like the writer.
So it's still sitting thereafter almost 20 years.
And then, you know, oliverStone got to do his version of
Alexander the Great, but that'ssomething that I've seen.
He's that version of Alexanderthe Great, but that's something
that I've seen.
We have one of our own filmsfrom one of our authors, that
Camelot's cousin, the spy whobetrayed Kennedy.
David is a historian, so heloves to do history, thrillers
(19:08):
and things that have to do withpolitics.
You know, because he was also apastor, for you know some of
the detail of George Bush, youknow bodyguards and Homeland
Security, so he loves thosestories.
We had a well-known actor,blair Underwood, who partnered
up with us and we are nowsitting in the trades and, you
know, five years later nothinghas happened, because then, of
course, we have the war withRussia and now we can't.
(19:29):
It's dealing with Russia and wecan't do anything.
So you're right, it is veryconfusing because there is a lot
, of, a lot of moving parts.
You know the streaming, thestreaming, wars, you know the,
the hollywood strikes, thepandemics, the shutdown, but I
I'm sure your stuff will see,will see itself on the screen,
(19:50):
because one of the great thingsand and I don't know if you read
it in the news now everythingis about books.
So even in hollywood I meanyou're having to be who's a
major platform from youtube thatis a streamer and financier
they're starting their own bookdivision so that they can
develop book to made intofeatures, um.
(20:12):
So I I find that fascinatingbecause you're almost like a
pioneer, you you know, into intowhat you started to do, because
now everybody wants books, nokidding Well it's funny because
you can actually revive content.
J D Barker (20:26):
So there's a movie from the 90s called Flatliners
which has always been my alltime favorites.
It's got Kiefer Sutherland andJulia Roberts, kevin Bacon,
billy Baldwin, oliver Platt allthese people basically at the
start of their career, you know.
So they were unknown at thetime but then they went on to do
these, these crazy, amazingthings.
I have loved that movie myentire life.
And the guy who wrote it hisname is Peter Filardi.
(20:47):
He's actually on the Draculproject, working on that and I,
you know, started bugging themyears ago.
I was like, hey, if you everget the rights back to this,
I've got an idea.
And the studio had the rights.
They weren't going to releaseit, so I just kind of figured
that that was never going tohappen.
And then in January he gave mea call and he's like hey,
columbia gave me my rights back.
Do you still want to dosomething?
(21:09):
So we basically came up with anidea, something, a fresh take on
the Flatliners storyline, sobasically a way to reboot the
franchise.
But we're doing this completelybackwards.
So, rather than the moviecoming out, you know I'm writing
a book based on the originalscreenplay that he wrote, but
with a completely new storyline,new twist to it to take it into
(21:29):
the 21st century.
So we announced that when wefirst signed the contract, all
the studios jumped all over it.
We've got a crazy list ofstudios that wanted at this
point we haven't even finishedwriting the book yet.
But you know.
So we're basically rebootingwhat was originally a movie, was
never a book, is now comingback as a book.
First, that will become a movie, you know, and I'm not actually
(21:52):
the first person to do this MegGarner did it with Heat 2.
You know, she wrote the sequelto that movie, heat, which was
another fantastic movie, youknow, and nobody expected
anything like that.
It started off as a movie.
They wrote a book, you know,based on, you know, to follow
that storyline and take it intoa new direction, and now that's
in development as anotherfeature film.
So yeah, I'm constantlyencouraging authors get out
(22:13):
there, take a look at IP.
You know that still stands.
That works well today.
You never know.
You know that that still stands, that works well today.
You never know.
You know if, what, what you canreboot, you know, and if you
don't ask the question, if youdon't give it a try, it's never
going to happen.
Alexia Melocchi (22:25):
So you gotta you know if you find one you
know, light up somebody's emailbox, see what happens.
Worst case, you know, somebodywill say no.
But at least you know, Ipublished my own book, but mine
(22:47):
is all about mindset and youknow how to like navigate
Hollywood and I self-publishedit and it was really done.
Because of all the courses thatI've done on pitching and all
of that, I just wanted to offermy cliff notes version of how to
succeed in Hollywood and beyond.
And then we started developing,you know, a true story, you
know, set in Hollywood, like NewYork of the 1920s, sort of like
the woman that went againstLucky Luciano and Al Capone.
A true story, true biopic.
And we wrote the feature scripts.
(23:08):
We commissioned both the scriptof her and her son because he
became a spy, and all incrediblestuff.
But guess what?
We just turned those twoscripts into a novel and the
novel is coming out January 15th, you know.
And because we said, you knowwhat, let's build the audience.
It's a very expensive, you know, project movie to make, or
actually two movies.
(23:29):
Let's get those two movies andcondense them and turn them into
a novel.
So I think a lot of people aredoing that as well.
They're turning existing moviescripts and going.
You know what?
I don't think I have enoughtraction on that as much as I
want to, because they'reexpensive.
Let me build the audience.
I think also the writer from Ithink it's the writer from
Twilight.
She was self-published as well.
(23:50):
If I'm not mistaken, there'squite a few people Fifty Shades
of Grey.
I think that was pretty muchhybrid publishing,
self-publishing.
I mean, was there a moment?
Was your decision to go fromtraditional publishing to your
indie publishing financiallydriven, or was it more about
having control about thetrajectory of your book and or
(24:15):
your books in plural?
J D Barker (24:17):
It was a mix of everything.
So I indie published the firsttitle.
So I kind of got a taste ofthat world and ended up selling
a lot of copies.
We sold about a quarter millioncopies of it, which was enough
to put me on the radar of thetraditional guys.
If you sell a lot of books asan indie, they watch those lists
very closely.
So when I went to sell my nextbook I ended up getting a seven
figure deal with a movie and TVshow attached to it for the
(24:38):
fourth monkey series.
On the traditional side it wasinitially with HMH, which is now
part of Harper Collins.
But my next several books wepublished on the traditional
model and there were a couplethings that I, you know, I got
that taste of being indie and Ithink that's what really, you
know, sparked a lot of mydecisions, because you've got a
hundred percent control overeverything from your cover to
(24:59):
your formatting.
You know I hired professionalsacross the board.
So even though I indiepublished, I still had copy
editors.
I still, you know, hire thebest formatters out there.
I wanted to make sure that anindie published title, if it
came out, it was still on parwith something coming out of
Random House, because in my eyesthat's my real competition.
So it had to look likesomething you know coming out of
the big houses.
But so I basically got a tasteof all that.
(25:19):
The economics were a big partof it, you know, because as an
indie author you get roughly 70cents on the dollar, which is
fantastic, and on thetraditional side you're lucky if
you get 15 to 20 cents on thedollar.
So they hand you a nice bigcheck at the get-go, which is
great, but you have to pay thatmoney back and you have to pay
it back in these small littleincrements.
So I did a couple of books onthe traditional side and then I
(25:39):
really started questioning allof this and I went to my agent
and I said listen on this nextone, which was like a caller's
game, I'm going to retainEnglish rights for myself.
I'm going to put them outthrough my own press.
You're welcome to sell all theforeign territories like you
normally do, and I'm in about150 different countries.
You know 20 to 30 differentlanguages or so, so there was
still a big market for that.
(25:59):
But that was basically my firststep as a hybrid author.
You know we traditionallypublished the book in some
places I indie published it inothers.
A year after the book came out Ilooked at the list of countries
where it was published and youknow if, if, if, it was in a
language or not in a languagewhere I wanted it to be, I hired
my own translators and put itout there.
Um, so I did that for a coupleof books.
(26:20):
Um then, about, I guess about ayear ago, I finished up a book
called behind a closed door, um,which started getting a lot of
interest from the Hollywood sidestraight off the bat, and they
dubbed it 50 Shades meets DavidFincher's the Game.
So my agent wanted to take itout.
He was like, let's just shop itand see what happens.
So he shopped it to all the bigpublishing houses.
(26:41):
We had a number of them thatwanted it.
It was going to go to auction.
We ended up signing a film dealbefore we signed anything on
the publishing side.
And then I got a phone call froma friend of mine who works at
Random House and she said listen, we're about to offer on your
book in the auction but you needto turn it down.
And I asked her why and shesaid well, we're about to lay
off a bunch of people, includingthe editor who wants your book.
(27:03):
I got a similar phone call fromsomebody at HarperCollins about
a week later and then all theselayoffs happened across the
board.
And if you've ever known anauthor who has a book that's at
a publishing house and you loseyour editor like that book can
end up in limbo for a very longtime.
You know, a lot of it dependson your contract.
You may get your rights back,you may not, depending on the
language in that contract.
But that all scared me because Ididn't want this book to have
(27:25):
that kind of fate.
So I kind of reached back to myfriends in finance that I had
worked with years ago.
Simon Schuster had justrecently been bought by a
private equity firm.
So I reached out to SimonSchuster and ultimately I struck
a deal where they let me createmy own imprint, with Simon
Schuster handling my print salesand distribution, which is what
I'm doing now.
(27:46):
So I basically have the best ofboth worlds I get to act as an
indie author, I can put outwhatever books I want whenever I
want, but I have Simon andSchuster as the backbone.
So they're getting those booksinto all the places that I
couldn't get to as an indieauthor.
So you'll find them in Costco,in the grocery store, at the
airport, you know all thoseplaces indie authors are, you
know, at this moment from, youknow can't get into.
I'm able to get my titles there.
(28:08):
So that's what I'm doing nowand, honestly, it makes a lot of
sense because from a financialstandpoint, you know I'm
collecting revenue as an author,as the publisher, um, you know.
And from simon and schuster'sstandpoint, it makes sense too
because you know I'm thepublisher, I'm taking on the
financial burden of the cost ofa print run, let's say.
But if the book does well, theyprofit too.
So, like, it made sense forthem to partner with me.
(28:29):
And I think you, you're going tosee other authors, other
publishers, do similar deals tothis in the next couple of years
.
Because to me it's the nextlogical step of this.
Because if you take a big indieauthor who's selling a
ridiculous amount of books, youknow a traditional publisher
will waive a million dollarcheck in front of them.
That author is going to say no,because they know the economic
side of it, they know that theydon't need that money.
Up front, they, they know thatthey don't need that money up
(28:50):
front.
They'll make it back on theother side.
But you know, if you change ita little bit, you offer a deal
similar to the one that I signed.
All of a sudden, that indieauthor can get their title into
a lot of different places andstill collect the same revenue
that they were getting before asan indie.
That's a no brainer, I think,from from all sides.
So I think that's how we'regoing to see this entire
industry go.
Alexia Melocchi (29:09):
I think it's happening globally and you hit
the spot on that one.
I think it's happening also inthe film distribution arena.
I mean, you've seen how manymovies you're seeing now ending
up on Netflix, have already beenseen on HBO, there've been HBO
productions or Amazon, but thenthey end up in Netflix.
And with a lot of indiefilmmakers too, when they're
making the smaller movies, Ialways say to them don't get the
(29:32):
big sale with Apple or Amazonor whatever, because once you're
tied into that, that's it.
You know you have no other waysto exploit your film.
But if you start with a niche,for example, if you're having,
say, you know, a sports movie,go to all like the platforms
that are putting out sportsfilms, you know, so that you're
going to have your audienceright there.
Play that out, play thedifferent niches and whatever
(29:54):
the themes are of your movie,and then you can still end up
with the big boys or girls orpublishers.
So I think it's happening on aglobal scale.
It's happening in the musicbusiness, it's happening in the
streaming and in thedistribution model, in the
production model.
It's happening in the authormodel.
Now I'd like to address theelephant in the room, because
obviously there's all this talkabout AI and chat, GPT and all
(30:18):
of that.
Are you finding this toolhelpful to you as an author?
Or is that kind of taking youoff because you're seeing
everyone and their motherthinking I'm going to be an
author and I'm just going to putan idea into ChatGPT?
Write me a book and I'llpublish it, and it will do just
as well as your book.
J D Barker (30:39):
What do you think?
We are years away from thatactually happening.
At least, that's what I tellmyself when I get up in the
morning.
Yes, I use all the differenttools, the AI tools more because
I really want to understandwhere they're at from a
developmental standpoint.
My personal favorite is onecalled Claude, which isn't
available worldwide.
There's only a handful ofplaces where you can get it, but
(31:00):
it just seems to write verywell certain things so I can
feed a book into it.
I can tell it give me the textfor the back of the book.
You know there's 200 words, theback of book blurb.
It can do a fantastic job atthat, and if you don't like what
it gives you, you know you giveme something else.
You just type that in 10seconds later it gives you
something else, so you can tweakthat.
You can get a tagline for yourbook.
It's fantastic at creating adcopy, but can it write a book?
(31:24):
No, because essentially, whatends up happening?
And if you, if you think aboutthe tech itself, you, and if you
think about the tech itself,you know you're talking to an
encyclopedia All it can do isregurgitate what it's already
been told, which means that itcan't have an original thought.
It can communicate things thathave already been done, but in
my world, you know, like thatjust doesn't work.
So, like for an AI, one plusone always equals two, but when
(31:46):
you write a thriller, one plusone really needs to equal three.
You need to surprise people.
You know, I write books withJames Patterson.
If Jim and I get on the phoneand we brainstorm an idea, he
will come up with some crazythings out of left field that I
would have never thought of thatan AI could never possibly come
up with, you know.
So that's our edge as humans.
Our voice, our writer voice, isour other edge.
(32:06):
You know, I don't think an AI isever going to be able to
duplicate my writer voice.
And you know, like I've beentold.
You know, like people have said, if you want to duplicate
Stephen King, all you got to dois feed all of his books into an
AI.
It's going to learn how towrite like Stephen King.
If you think about it, that'sactually not the case.
You would have to upload everyexperience that Stephen King,
the person, has ever had, everyinteraction he's ever had.
(32:26):
All of that would have to go inthere and then maybe it might
be able to duplicate that.
So that's never going to happenand if it does, I think it's
probably years away.
I mean, ai has to have anoriginal thought before it even
becomes competition at thispoint.
Alexia Melocchi (32:41):
Yeah, and I think right now, as you said,
it's useful to cut the hours ofthe more tedious things like
writing the back of a book coveror maybe doing you, you know, a
little quick synopsis so youcan put it into your book
presentation and then you canedit it yourself.
It can give you that, but Idon't think it was like that.
(33:01):
We're talking about this at theproducers guild of america
awards and they said they said,producers, your job is safe with
AI because, ultimately, whenyou have to go in the room and
same thing like you're talkingwith authors and you have to
pitch an idea and you have tosay, you know there is a shark
that speaks, you know AIwouldn't be able to come up with
a story that because they'regoing to say, wait, sharks don't
(33:22):
speak.
You know it's going to go intothat, but we, you as a
storyteller, as a champion ofstorytellers, you can invent the
craziest things in the room andyou can pitch them.
You can't pitch them as amachine.
And I think that goes like yousaid.
Somebody would have to get intoyour mind and to your thought
of saying, oh, what is Jaythinking about all day long?
(33:43):
What does he want to do next.
How does he act in thissituation?
And I think that's somethingthat is probably, hopefully, 100
years away, before we evenclose it to my famous question
that I asked you before, becausethis has been such an inspiring
conversation I Obviously youhad this challenging moment at
the beginning of your career,which was you gave yourself a
(34:05):
deadline with your wife, yousold everything and you just I
got to do this.
You know or forget about it.
Were there other moments, onceyou peaked in your career
although there's never really apeaking?
Were there other moments whereyou've encountered a major
stumbling block which you had toget out?
Your get yourself out of it,and what type of mindset did you
(34:28):
use or what type of logic didyou use to get yourself out of
it?
I know it's a very complicated,long winded question.
J D Barker (34:36):
I tend to.
I mean, there's always anotherbrass ring.
You know, like there's alwayssomething more that you want to
obtain.
You know, like I won an award,so now I'm an award winning
author, I can put that on thecover.
I hit a bestseller list, now Ican put that on there.
I'm a New York Times bestseller, I can put that on there.
But in my mind, like I'm inreality, my highest place on the
New York Times list was numbertwo.
I've never actually hit numberone, which means bestseller on
(35:09):
the list.
So I'm still striving to getthat number one.
There's always something bigger, but I tend to look at what's
working and what's not.
You know, everything in my lifetends to come down to that.
You know, I make a lot of listsof what's working and what's
not.
Very early on I looked atbranding.
You know, if you walk into abookstore, particularly if
you're on the traditional side,they're going to make the title
of your book huge and the authorname is this tiny little
scribble.
You know, at the top or thebottom that you can't see unless
you get right up on it.
Um, but you know, if you lookat the big name authors, you
(35:29):
know the ones that are sellingwell the stephen kings of the
world.
Their name is huge on the coverand the title is this tiny
little scribble, um.
So that is the ultimate goalfrom my standpoint.
So I started watching my bookcovers that were coming out of
the traditional market andpushing for that.
Ultimately, I created atrademark version of my name,
which I now license back.
So if one of the traditionalpublishers wants to put my name
(35:50):
on the cover of the book whichthey have to do if I write it
they have to actually pay me alicense fee in order to put my
name on the cover.
I developed my own covers.
You know the images and Ilicensed those back, you know.
So rather than having apublishing house create the book
cover for me, I do it and Igive them the option to license
that cover, and I do that on aworldwide basis.
And it may seem silly, but likethe cost of creating the cover
(36:12):
is maybe 1000 to $2,000 to get areally good one, I license each
of them for anywhere from 500to a couple thousand dollars per
country.
The same image over and overagain.
So, like I look at every aspectof my business and figure out
what's working and what's not,how to capitalize it, how to
monetize it, how to improve it.
Recently I just created a newline of co-authored titles, you
(36:33):
know, because as an individual Ican put out two to three books
a year at my writing pace.
But to me that's not enough.
You know, working with JamesPatterson, I think, has fed that
that a little bit.
I've studied his business modelvery closely.
So now I'm working withco-authors.
The book behind me we Don't TalkAbout Emma.
I wrote it with a guy who livedin New Orleans for a number of
(36:53):
years.
He knows the city inside andout.
He knows the people, he knowsthe places, he knows the smell
of the city.
New Orleans is a character byitself.
I could write a book about NewOrleans and I could probably
Google enough to be able to fakemy way through what I needed to
.
But having somebody who reallyknows that city inside and out
it adds an authenticity to thestory that I couldn't create on
my own.
So I seek out co authors thatcan bring in expertise from left
(37:16):
field to add a dynamic to thebook.
So I am always looking at waysto expand my craft and my
business model and takeeverything to the next level.
Alexia Melocchi (37:26):
Wow, I absolutely love that.
And, again, I always say, artis a collaborative, you know
effort, whether it's writing abook or making movies, and it
always ticks me off sometimeswhen there is either a filmmaker
or you know well, filmmakershave to do their own directing,
although sometimes it can be two, but you know or authors, you
(37:47):
have to be open.
I mean, look at you, you'recollaborated with James
Patterson, so I love that youare open to bringing in other
authors who can give somethingmaybe different inside your
books.
How do you do thosepartnerships, though?
I mean, are you the lead authorand then you just find somebody
?
Or can somebody come to you andsay, JD, listen, I have an idea
(38:10):
.
I've been writing this book.
I love to partner up with youbecause I love your brand, of
course, and I love your name andI love your expertise.
Can we do something together?
Are you open to this type ofcollaborations?
J D Barker (38:24):
Yeah, I mean they all come together.
It's like the Hollywood stuff,like no two books have come
together the same way.
I spend a lot of time mentoringother authors.
It's something I really enjoy.
You know, taking somebody, likeif they've got that writer gene,
like I can tell you know.
Like it just jumps out.
You know this person can write,but they may not understand the
business, they may notunderstand pacing, they may not
understand this or that.
(38:44):
I've been there, done that so Ican teach them all those
different things.
So when I bring in somebody toco-author a book, it's a give
take on both sides.
I'm getting a book out of it inthe end, but they're getting a
major education in how to writea thriller.
And then, on the flip side, thatbook is going to come out
through Simon Schuster, which issomething that would be
(39:06):
difficult for many authors toobtain.
It's going to be in virtuallyevery bookstore.
It's going to be anywhere whereyou find books.
It's going to come out in a lotof countries.
That gives them a big leg up.
So when they write their nextbook on their own, they
basically walk into that projectwith this education behind them
.
So they're writing a muchtighter book than they would
have before, and they've got anestablished track record on a
(39:26):
worldwide basis.
So when they walk into an agentor a publisher they can say,
hey here, this is my last book,here's how it's done.
And that agent can use thatsame knowledge.
They pitch that book in Spanish, they can talk to a Spanish
publisher, and that Spanishpublisher is going to be able to
see that person's name, asalready sold books in their
country.
So it just gives them a hugeleg up.
Alexia Melocchi (39:47):
Oh, my goodness , I love that.
I'm already thinking about somany people who could use.
You know who could use workingwith you on that, and I know
there's only so many hours inthe day, but I love that you're
you're giving back this way.
How does your wife feel about,like you, being such a
multitasker and being so busy?
Do you even have any time foryour personal life?
(40:08):
And I know you live, you know,outside of the city, I think
right now, and so you're havinga little bit more of a quieter
life, correct?
J D Barker (40:16):
Yeah, we, when we were in Pittsburgh and the book
started hitting, we realizedwe're living in Pittsburgh and
we don't have to.
So we started looking all overthe country.
We ultimately we bought a houseon an Island right off the
coast of Portsmouth in NewHampshire, which we which we
love.
I can look out my office windowand I can see the water.
You know, the elementary schoolthat my daughter goes to is
right across the street so shecan walk to school.
It's it's very picturesque.
(40:38):
So we've we've got a fantasticlife.
One of the things that honestlystarted happening when the book
started to take off.
You know they start coming outin different countries and I
would get interview requestsfrom these different places and
they would come in at like crazyhours.
You know, like we need you at11 o'clock at night, we need you
at two o'clock in the morning,four o'clock in the morning, and
initially I took all of thembecause you know that's what I
was told to do, but it just youcan't sustain a career, I think,
(41:01):
doing that.
So in today's world I have aquitting bell that runs at three
o'clock every day, like that'swhen my business day ends, no
matter what.
So any kind of interview, youknow, any business activity.
Everything's got to be donebefore 3 pm.
Three o'clock.
I go fora, run around theisland to kind of clear my head
and then I come home and I spendthe rest of the night with my
daughter and my wife and we justwe have family time.
(41:21):
So you know, I just try toenjoy all of it.
Alexia Melocchi (41:26):
There's always a need for discipline in life
and you know what?
Thank God for Zoom right andthank God for you know, all the
positive aspects of thispandemics and lockdown is that
now you probably don't have togo on so many book tours.
You can do your own book tourover Zoom and talk to everybody.
You don't have to get on theplane and travel the world.
You can do this like this,which I'm sure makes it easy and
(41:48):
makes the family happier andeverything.
This has been such a greatconversation, jd.
I'm so happy that we connectedand you gave so much information
and so much wisdom and so muchinspiration already to me
personally and respect,obviously, for the craft um.
We're getting to the, thefamous life quote, life mantra,
(42:12):
um that you know your go-to um.
Have you thought of one sinceyou and I started and pushed the
record button?
J D Barker (42:21):
yeah, so, early on, working with james patterson,
one of the things that he toldme is at the top of every, he
writes everything by hand.
He does it on a notebook and atthe top of every page he writes
the words be there.
And you know, it sums up a lotof different things.
You know and we really drovethat home when we were writing
the first book together you know, be there in the scene, with
the characters right right theredown on the ground, know, like,
(42:43):
be in that scene, be in thatmoment, um.
But you know, that's it's takenon another meaning to me
because, you know, as anautistic person, I tend to focus
very heavily on either whereI've been or where I'm going.
I don't necessarily spend awhole lot of time in the actual
moment, um.
So you know, for me, be therealso means, you know, be there
(43:03):
in the present.
You there in the present, enjoywhatever's happening around you
right now.
Don't dwell on the past, don'tspend time thinking about the
future, but be there in thecurrent moment.
So I try to do that too.
So be there, I think, isprobably my go-to phrase right
now.
Alexia Melocchi (43:19):
I love it and you certainly are applying that
just by your own life rule thatyou stop working after 3 pmm and
you're taking your time to bewith the family and thank god,
like I said, you're busy, but atleast you're physically there.
That's, I think, the joy ofbeing an artist, a writer, you
know, a producer, whatever.
We don't have to be outclocking in and clocking out.
(43:39):
Like you said, we can still bethere for the people that we
care about the most.
So it's the one that we justmentioned and I see on the wall.
Is that the next book that isout right now that we need to
plug in and promote?
When is it dropped?
Has it already dropped?
J D Barker (43:57):
I have so many books coming out, so my last one
depending on when this airs, mylast one was called Heavier the
Stones.
It released in November.
We don't talk about Emma, whichis the one that's behind me.
That one comes out in February.
In March I have a book comingout with James Patterson called
the Writer, which is one of thefunnest books I think I've ever
worked on, definitely myfavorite of the ones I've worked
(44:17):
with Jim.
And then in May I've got acrazy one about a haunted house
on an island and it's based on.
It's based on a real house thatI see every day when I go on my
run around the island, and thetagline for the book is for a
haunted house to be born,somebody has to die.
So you basically know where thestory is going and it's one of
those books.
It was the scariest book Ithink I've ever written.
(44:38):
I worked on it for a number ofyears, had to keep putting it
aside and putting it aside, buteventually I got it done.
Alexia Melocchi (44:45):
Years I had to keep putting it aside and
putting it aside, but eventuallyI got it done and it's a
frightening tale, Wow.
Well, this interview is goingto become coming out early in
2025, definitely in January.
So, yeah, so we'll have.
We'll definitely be able tomention some of those books and
even the ones that are comingout.
Whenever you know you havespecific drop dates, I mean, do
let us know.
We'll continue to plug theepisode.
(45:07):
It has been such a true joy andpleasure to have you on my show
, JD.
I cherish the conversation andfor any of you who have
questions about JD and you enjoythis episode, please subscribe,
rate review.
As you all know, I don't haveto repeat myself.
I don't have sponsors.
(45:27):
I'm doing it out of the lovefor the craft, so please do
support me, but also support myguests by clicking on their
website, click on their Amazonauthor pages, buying their books
, because we want to keep themturning out great storytelling.
Thank you for being on my show,JD.
J D Barker (45:46):
Thanks for having me Appreciate it.
Alexia Melocchi (45:48):
It's been great .
It's been great Everybody.
The heart of show business overand out.
Ciao.
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode of the heart of
show business.
If you enjoyed it, please shareit with a friend.
You can also subscribe, rateand review the show on your
favorite podcast player.
(46:08):
If you have any questions orcomments or feedback for us, you
can reach me directly attheheartofshowbusinesscom.
Welcome to the heart of show business.
I am your host, alexia Melocchi.
I believe in great storytellingand that every successful
artist has a deep desire toexpress something from the heart
to create a ripple effect inour society.
Emotion and entertainment areclosely tied together.
Emotion and entertainment areclosely tied together.
My guests and I want to giveyou insider access to how the
(00:28):
film, television and musicindustry works.
We will cover.
Dreams come true, the road lesstraveled journey beginnings and
a lot of insight andinspiration in between.
I am a successful film andtelevision entrepreneur who came
to America as a teenager topursue my show business dreams.
Are you ready for someunfiltered real talk with
(00:50):
entertainment visionaries fromall over the world?
Then let's roll sound andaction.
Hello to all my listeners of theHeart of Show Business podcast.
You know I haven't been doingas many episodes as I like to
lately, but whenever I have aguest on, it's for a very, very
(01:14):
special reason and when Idiscovered this incredible,
worldwide renowned New YorkTimes bestseller author and some
of his books and his trajectoryof his career you know, going
from obviously publishing withsome of the biggest publishing
houses to doing it on his ownand pivoting and still
(01:38):
succeeding at it and, of course,having some of his books
already sold to major studios tobe made into features, I told
myself I have to bring thisgentleman on.
So I have with me here JDBarker.
He is a New York Timesbestselling author.
His books have been publishedworldwide with some of the
(01:58):
biggest publishing homes.
He was a journalist before.
He was writing for a lot ofmagazines, doing celebrity
interviews, and then, you know,he went into, I think, into the
indie publishing world back in2014.
So I think it's way before weall caught up into this.
(02:19):
And you know his novel Dracowas sold, of course, into the
studios.
He's collaborating with some ofthe greats, like James Patterson
.
He has another thriller calledthe Fourth Monkey.
He's been with HarperCollins.
I mean, you just have to lookhim up.
He is a powerhouse in thethriller supernatural horror.
(02:41):
You know, true, not I don'tthink it's true crime, but crime
space.
I haven't read all your book,pardon me, because I went.
It would take me five months toread them.
So pardon me for not beingfully up to speed, but you are
my kind of author, so welcome tomy show, jd.
J D Barker (02:58):
Well, thanks for having me.
I'm gonna have to bring youalong everywhere I go and you
can just introduce me at the,you know, at the, at the opening
of the room when I walk in.
Alexia Melocchi (03:05):
that was perfect it's my little Hollywood
pizzazz.
You know, when you're aproducer and you have to pitch
something in a room, it's like,okay, can we put the highlight
reel?
And just like, really like usethe buzzwords and just like get
people intrigued, right?
So yes, I'm full hire it's fun.
J D Barker (03:22):
it's fun hearing it like that, because you know, to
me like it just it went by in ablur, but you know, you
basically just summed up thelast 30 years of my life.
Alexia Melocchi (03:32):
Exactly, and because I want people to be
curious about you.
I mean, I find it so boringwhen people start reading off a
thing and they're like, oh, andthis, and he did that, so what's
the point?
You're going to be on my show,you're going to talk about it,
which is so fantastic, you know.
(03:57):
So I want to hear a little bitabout your origin story, because
, of course, you started out anauthor, I'm going to write books
, and why did you also chooseall this very dark, dark genres,
let's put it this way.
J D Barker (04:12):
Well, I, you know, like a lot of the people in your
audience, you know I've beenwriting pretty much my whole
life.
It was kind of my go to, youknow, just to keep myself sane.
It was, you know, something Ijust did for fun and my parents
encouraged that portion of it.
You know, writing was afantastic hobby in their eyes
but they kind of drilled home.
You know, writing is great for,you know, fun activity but you
can't make a living at it so youhave to get a real job, you
(04:34):
know.
So I kind of.
You know that's sort of how Ispent the first half of my life.
You know, I went to high school, finished that up, went to
college, ended up getting adegree in finance, another one
in business, another one in IT,I got halfway through a
psychology degree.
Then I ended up working in thefinance industry and through all
of that, you know, I would comehome and I would write.
And one of my first jobs Iworked for BMG Distribution,
(04:56):
which was a division of RCARecords down in Fort Lauderdale
in Miami.
That was essentially aglorified babysitter, so they
would have a recording artistcome into town and I'd have to
pick them up at the airport, getthem to the radio station for
their interview, get them totheir concert, get them to their
hotel and then get them back ontheir airplane when it was time
to go.
And you know, meanwhile I wasgoing to college during the
daytime, which is expensive.
So I quickly realized I've gotsome very famous people in the
(05:19):
car with me.
You know they're a captiveaudience, sometimes for four or
five days at a time.
So I started to interview themand then I would take those
interviews and sell them tomagazines like 17 and teen
people and teen beat and youknow all these other magazines
that were huge back in thenineties that are probably gone
now.
Um, but when you work in thatworld, when you work for
newspapers and magazines, youquickly realize everybody you're
(05:40):
working with has a novel atsome stage of development.
It's in a desk drawer somewhere.
They've been working on it forthe last 10 years.
It's almost done.
It's 400,000 words.
You know they're just they're,yeah, they're kind of lost, but
I was very good with grammar andpunctuation.
So initially people would justhand me those books and ask me
to just kind of go through itand, you know, clean it up for
them, which I love doing.
(06:00):
It was fun, and that thatturned into providing
developmental advice andultimately it turned into a side
hustle as a career, as a bookdoctor and a ghostwriter.
So you know, I was working infinance, you know, after I got
out of college.
Ultimately I was a chiefcompliance officer at a
brokerage firm, which is ashorrible as it sounds, but it's
one of those jobs that paysreally good.
(06:20):
So I was kind of kind of stuckand then I would come home and I
would work on these otherprojects at night and over 20
some years I ended up with sixdifferent books that hit the New
York Times list that all hadother people's names on the
cover that I had essentiallywritten, which gets really old
after a while.
So when that six one hit up, mywife pulled me aside and she
said Listen, I know you want tobecome a full time author.
(06:41):
Let's figure out a way to makethis happen.
But we were kind of trapped,you know, because I had the big
salary, we had a big house, wehad cars, we had a boat.
You know our monthly expenseswere, you know, somewhere around
$10,000 to $12,000.
So we couldn't just walk awayfrom all that.
So she came up with this crazyplan.
We sold everything that weowned, we bought a duplex in
Pittsburgh, rented out one sideand lived in the other, and she
(07:02):
sat me down at the kitchen tableone day and showed me the bank
statement and said, okay, thisis our savings.
It looks like you have about 18months to make it as a writer
go, and I know that's a lot ofstuff, but you know that that's
essentially where I kicked offmy my career as a full time
author.
You know it's 20 some years inthe making and overnight,
overnight success.
Alexia Melocchi (07:22):
Wow, that is so inspiring.
I mean just that alone.
I'm going we hit a home run onthis one.
I mean, first of all, there'sone thing that I've seen as a
little bit of a common threadfor a lot of people who have
been successful in theircreative endeavors is that they
do have a little bit of abusiness experience, and I am
(07:43):
sure that having worked in thefinancial and business world
also helped you think okay, Iwrote this book.
Now how do I sell it?
How do I pitch it to obviouslyat the beginning, to a
publishing home?
Or how do I build a brand sothat I can get readers, so that
I can demonstrate to people thatmy books are good?
(08:04):
Because you know, we all know,back in the day we did not have
algorithms, we did not have, youknow, social media as much as
we do today.
So how did you, once youstarted, getting your first
publishing deals which I'm sureyou made it before the deadline,
I would think, hopefully andhow did you build the audience?
(08:25):
Your, your publishing house canonly do so much right.
So how did you go about it?
Because I know you spoke aboutpersonal branding, um, in your
talking points, and I'd love toknow a little bit how you
incorporated your businessstructure into your creative
path well working in the musicbusiness.
J D Barker (08:46):
You know it's a very similar model to books and I
saw a lot of people come and go.
I saw a lot of the mistakesthat they made and I saw what
worked and what didn't work.
One of the things that hasstuck with me my entire life one
of the people that Iinterviewed was Madonna.
Back in the day when she wastouring for Vogue and we talked
about her album promotion andshe said that whenever she had a
new album coming out, she wouldmake a list of what she saw
(09:08):
everybody else doing at the timeand then, when she finished
that list, she would makeanother list of things nobody
was doing.
And that's essentially what shedid to promote her book.
I've always thought of it aszigging instead of zagging.
So you know everybody else iszigging, so you want to zag, you
want to do something that'sgoing to make you stand out.
So that's always been abenchmark in everything I do
from a marketing standpoint.
But essentially, I mean Istarted in the same place that
(09:33):
everybody else did.
I had zero people on my mailinglist.
I had zero followers on thesocial media platforms.
You know you start off with one, two, 10, 20, 100, 1000.
And it just kind of grows overtime.
Each book that I put out is aconscious decision on my part to
kind of expand my audience.
You know I tend to bouncearound in genres.
If you read my Wikipedia page,I think it sums me up the best
and it was crafted withparticular language in mind.
(09:54):
It says I'm a suspense authorwho may also include elements of
horror, of sci-fi, of this andof that.
And we did that on purpose,because a lot of times when I do
an interview, you know, evenlike this one, the first place a
reporter goes to is thatWikipedia page.
So it basically defines who Iam as a, as an author.
It gives them talking pointsfrom an author standpoint by
bouncing around in genres.
(10:14):
I'm almost like a literary PiedPiper, you know.
Like my first couple of books,you know, I was told by my
publishers my audience was women, 45 and over, and I said that's
great.
Now how do I get a differentaudience?
You know not that I want to, Idon't want to replace them, I
want to add to it.
So I wrote a book that was veryheavily young adult, you know,
(10:35):
to grab that younger crew Iwrote a prequel to Dracula, for
Bram Stoker's family to rope inthe horror authors or the horror
readers.
So I'm always looking at eachproject.
You know how is this going toexpand my audience and bring
back into the fold?
And, as a writer, as long as youhave a common thread, you know
like in my case it's suspense.
You know all of my books kindof have that same look and feel
to them, the same kind of pacing.
You know I can branch off alittle bit and people will
follow along, and it's not aformula that I invented.
(10:58):
You know I studied the big nameauthors very closely.
I studied Stephen King, Istudied James Patterson, dean
Koontz, like all these.
You know Nora Roberts, allthese people that were selling a
ridiculous amount of books tofigure out.
You know what they were doingand how.
You know these are the nameswhere you walk into a bookstore
you see their title on the coverand you don't really care what
the book is about.
You just buy it because it'sthem.
That's where I wanted to see mycareer go, so literally
(11:20):
everything I've done has beentowards that as the end goal.
Alexia Melocchi (11:24):
Wow, and you did make it within the deadline.
Right that your wife gave you,Did you I?
J D Barker (11:30):
did.
Yeah, I think I.
I don't think I've ever misseda deadline.
I'm autistic, which issomething we can talk about if
you want to, but that's alwayskind of been there.
If you put a problem in frontof an autistic person, we can't
do anything else until we getthat done.
So a book deadline is has neverbeen a problem for me.
Alexia Melocchi (11:45):
That is so, you know, and this is absolutely.
I mean that that is definitelysomething to talk about.
I did have a guest before.
His name is Matthew Kenslow,who is autistic, and he, he put
himself through school and ittook him, you know, years to go
over and over again.
But he was like I am, I amgoing to be a scientist, I'm
(12:06):
going to teach, I'm going to goand inspire kids, and I mean the
most amazing challenges.
It was never say die and and,and you know, he approached
everything a little bit likeyou're talking about it.
It was in a very analytical way.
It's like seeing it on a chart,you know, like how, in minority
report, you see the people thatare like looking at things and
(12:27):
moving them around.
That's exactly how he plannedhis life and he planned his
career, you know, and everythinghe wanted to do the sciences,
the teaching, the degrees andeverything.
And I would think you know whenpeople say artists, autism is
not a handicap, autism is aspecial ability.
I always say that as far aswhat I'm interpreting it as.
(12:50):
So tell me a little bit aboutthat.
I mean, was there and was thereanybody who turned you down
because of it, or no?
J D Barker (12:59):
No, I mean essentially, you know, like my
social skills have always beenterrible.
I wasn't diagnosed with autismuntil I was 22.
So I didn't know what was goingon.
I just knew I had trouble, youknow, being around other people
and socializing.
But once I got that diagnosis,you know, again, it was a
problem that somebody could putin front of me that could be
solved, you know.
So I started to research autism.
I was diagnosed with somethingcalled Asperger's.
(13:20):
So I, you know, researched thatin particular and you know,
once I was able to do that, Icould, you know I, very similar
to what I do with books, I madea pro and cons list.
You know, these are thenegatives that this creates for
me.
Here are the positives itcreates for me.
And I doubled down on thepositives, one of the things
(13:44):
that I learned later.
You know, as an autistic person,you know we tend to mimic the
other people in certainsituations.
You know, it's kind of how weget through life.
You know, to give you anexample, if I'm standing at a
party with four or five friendsand somebody cracks a joke, I
may not find it funny, but I'mgoing to laugh, you know, a
millisecond later becauseeverybody else is laughing.
I basically copy what I seehappening around me to try and
appear as normal as possible,which is a silly thing to have
to say out loud, but that'sessentially what's going on, you
(14:06):
know, in an autistic person'shead.
So mimicking is something I'vebeen doing my entire life.
And what I didn't realize is,you know, I said, when I was
working as a ghostwriter, I wasactually mimicking other authors
and one of the skills that itgives me is I can read, you know
, like a couple paragraphs, acouple chapters written by
somebody else.
I can pick up on their writingstyle and their cadence and
their vocabulary and I can mimicthat writing style which, you
(14:29):
know, at the time I was in highdemand as a ghostwriter because
I could write a memoir forsomebody else, but in their
voice, you know.
So that's a skill I've kind ofcarried over.
Now that I'm writing fiction,you know, it just adds a little
bit more authenticity, I think,to my characters, because each
voice is very different.
They're very real people to mewhen I put them down on paper.
So you know, just like anythingelse, I just kind of looked at
(14:50):
what's working, what's not, andthen, you know, try to focus on
the good stuff.
Alexia Melocchi (14:54):
Well, you're doing fantastic here, to begin
with, and you already picked uplike the style of of my own
podcast.
And you know, one of themantras of my own podcast is
talent takes you places, mindsettakes you everywhere, which I
do believe that, and youliterally embody that.
And and I am now I'm going tohave to pick up all your books,
(15:15):
as if I don't have enough time,but I'm going to have to read up
all your books.
As if I don't have enough time,but I'm going to have to read
them because I'm totallyintrigued.
And bringing it back to thebooks, when you write, is there
a thought in the back of yourhead I want to see this into a
movie or a series.
Or do you just write the bookfor the pure pleasure of writing
it and then, if it gets soldlike quite a few have of yours,
(15:39):
great.
If it doesn't, it's not a dealbreaker.
J D Barker (15:43):
Like, do you think about seeing the visuals of your
stories when you I've beentrying to figure out Hollywood
from the beginning and like, themore I look at it, the more
confusing it actually gets.
Every one of my books have beenoptioned, with the exception of
my very first one.
It's got a tie into StephenKing and because of the
legalities of all that, you know, the lawyers tend to tell the
(16:04):
studios just to take a step back.
It's just not worth the trouble.
But every other one that I'vewritten has gotten optioned.
And it's funny because I wrotea book called A Caller's Game
and at that point I think I hadfive options that were already
in play.
And when I wrote that book likeI consciously tried to write a
book that couldn't be filmed.
I'm like I'm going to makesomething that they can't, even
just to see what happens.
And then the book came out andRidley Scott's company picked it
(16:26):
up right away.
We had talent tied to it rightaway.
You know I blow up like half ofNew York in this book and I
just I figured that it's justnot going to happen.
But you know, it just literallyjust comes down to a budgeting
thing.
It's like, yes, we can film it.
It's going to be a $200 millionproject, but it can be, it can
be done, you know.
So even that one's movingforward.
I think what happens is for melike when I write, you know, I
(16:48):
basically create characters tothe point where they they are
very real people and I take themand I drop them into one, you
know, into the plot, I drop theminto a scenario.
But because they're real peopleto me, I can watch them and
they can basically dictate theiractions.
So I'm more or less watching amovie playing out in my head and
I'm writing it down as fast asI can when it's working.
That's essentially what it'slike.
(17:08):
The side effect of that is thewords.
You know, the book itself isvery cinematic.
So I think, when the folks inHollywood, when they read it,
you know just, it feels like amovie and you know just, it
feels like a movie and you'relike, if you read a lot of my
reviews, you're going to see,you know a lot of them, people
point that out.
They're like this was likewatching a movie, this was like
watching a movie.
Um, so I guess that's theoutcome of it and the, you know
(17:37):
the.
The bonus is that the folks inHollywood tend to grab those.
Um, you know, to me that's anumbers game, you know, I just I
put my head down and I justwrite the next book.
You know, sooner or later Ithink something's going to get
done.
Alexia Melocchi (18:03):
Yeah, yeah, and I think it's also because
you're getting sold to thepowerful guys, and nothing
against them, because of course,when you're dealing with
companies like Ridley Scott orParamount or whatever, it's
definitely an asset to your ownpersonal brand, but they have so
much going on sometimes andthey can only get green lights,
so many projects at any giventime, especially when they're
expensive.
The indie producers whounfortunately may not have
enough cash to pay for thosebook purchases or book auctions
because they have to basicallygo out and hassle.
(18:24):
Sometimes some of those filmsget made a little quicker.
I mean I've seen that happeneven with the Last Legion or
Valerio Manfredi.
I mean obviously it was theWeinsteins, but you know he's
Alexander the Great was optionedby.
You know he's Alexander theGreat was optioned by.
Well, it was first optioned byreally Scott's company that went
into Baz Luhrmann's company,that went from Universal to Fox
(18:47):
and they hired a writer thatthey didn't like the writer.
So it's still sitting thereafter almost 20 years.
And then, you know, oliverStone got to do his version of
Alexander the Great, but that'ssomething that I've seen.
He's that version of Alexanderthe Great, but that's something
that I've seen.
We have one of our own filmsfrom one of our authors, that
Camelot's cousin, the spy whobetrayed Kennedy.
David is a historian, so heloves to do history, thrillers
(19:08):
and things that have to do withpolitics.
You know, because he was also apastor, for you know some of
the detail of George Bush, youknow bodyguards and Homeland
Security, so he loves thosestories.
We had a well-known actor,blair Underwood, who partnered
up with us and we are nowsitting in the trades and, you
know, five years later nothinghas happened, because then, of
course, we have the war withRussia and now we can't.
(19:29):
It's dealing with Russia and wecan't do anything.
So you're right, it is veryconfusing because there is a lot
, of, a lot of moving parts.
You know the streaming, thestreaming, wars, you know the,
the hollywood strikes, thepandemics, the shutdown, but I
I'm sure your stuff will see,will see itself on the screen,
(19:50):
because one of the great thingsand and I don't know if you read
it in the news now everythingis about books.
So even in hollywood I meanyou're having to be who's a
major platform from youtube thatis a streamer and financier
they're starting their own bookdivision so that they can
develop book to made intofeatures, um.
(20:12):
So I I find that fascinatingbecause you're almost like a
pioneer, you you know, into intowhat you started to do, because
now everybody wants books, nokidding Well it's funny because
you can actually revive content.
J D Barker (20:26):
So there's a movie from the 90s called Flatliners
which has always been my alltime favorites.
It's got Kiefer Sutherland andJulia Roberts, kevin Bacon,
billy Baldwin, oliver Platt allthese people basically at the
start of their career, you know.
So they were unknown at thetime but then they went on to do
these, these crazy, amazingthings.
I have loved that movie myentire life.
And the guy who wrote it hisname is Peter Filardi.
(20:47):
He's actually on the Draculproject, working on that and I,
you know, started bugging themyears ago.
I was like, hey, if you everget the rights back to this,
I've got an idea.
And the studio had the rights.
They weren't going to releaseit, so I just kind of figured
that that was never going tohappen.
And then in January he gave mea call and he's like hey,
columbia gave me my rights back.
Do you still want to dosomething?
(21:09):
So we basically came up with anidea, something, a fresh take on
the Flatliners storyline, sobasically a way to reboot the
franchise.
But we're doing this completelybackwards.
So, rather than the moviecoming out, you know I'm writing
a book based on the originalscreenplay that he wrote, but
with a completely new storyline,new twist to it to take it into
(21:29):
the 21st century.
So we announced that when wefirst signed the contract, all
the studios jumped all over it.
We've got a crazy list ofstudios that wanted at this
point we haven't even finishedwriting the book yet.
But you know.
So we're basically rebootingwhat was originally a movie, was
never a book, is now comingback as a book.
First, that will become a movie, you know, and I'm not actually
(21:52):
the first person to do this MegGarner did it with Heat 2.
You know, she wrote the sequelto that movie, heat, which was
another fantastic movie, youknow, and nobody expected
anything like that.
It started off as a movie.
They wrote a book, you know,based on, you know, to follow
that storyline and take it intoa new direction, and now that's
in development as anotherfeature film.
So yeah, I'm constantlyencouraging authors get out
(22:13):
there, take a look at IP.
You know that still stands.
That works well today.
You never know.
You know that that still stands, that works well today.
You never know.
You know if, what, what you canreboot, you know, and if you
don't ask the question, if youdon't give it a try, it's never
going to happen.
Alexia Melocchi (22:25):
So you gotta you know if you find one you
know, light up somebody's emailbox, see what happens.
Worst case, you know, somebodywill say no.
But at least you know, Ipublished my own book, but mine
(22:47):
is all about mindset and youknow how to like navigate
Hollywood and I self-publishedit and it was really done.
Because of all the courses thatI've done on pitching and all
of that, I just wanted to offermy cliff notes version of how to
succeed in Hollywood and beyond.
And then we started developing,you know, a true story, you
know, set in Hollywood, like NewYork of the 1920s, sort of like
the woman that went againstLucky Luciano and Al Capone.
A true story, true biopic.
And we wrote the feature scripts.
(23:08):
We commissioned both the scriptof her and her son because he
became a spy, and all incrediblestuff.
But guess what?
We just turned those twoscripts into a novel and the
novel is coming out January 15th, you know.
And because we said, you knowwhat, let's build the audience.
It's a very expensive, you know, project movie to make, or
actually two movies.
(23:29):
Let's get those two movies andcondense them and turn them into
a novel.
So I think a lot of people aredoing that as well.
They're turning existing moviescripts and going.
You know what?
I don't think I have enoughtraction on that as much as I
want to, because they'reexpensive.
Let me build the audience.
I think also the writer from Ithink it's the writer from
Twilight.
She was self-published as well.
(23:50):
If I'm not mistaken, there'squite a few people Fifty Shades
of Grey.
I think that was pretty muchhybrid publishing,
self-publishing.
I mean, was there a moment?
Was your decision to go fromtraditional publishing to your
indie publishing financiallydriven, or was it more about
having control about thetrajectory of your book and or
(24:15):
your books in plural?
J D Barker (24:17):
It was a mix of everything.
So I indie published the firsttitle.
So I kind of got a taste ofthat world and ended up selling
a lot of copies.
We sold about a quarter millioncopies of it, which was enough
to put me on the radar of thetraditional guys.
If you sell a lot of books asan indie, they watch those lists
very closely.
So when I went to sell my nextbook I ended up getting a seven
figure deal with a movie and TVshow attached to it for the
(24:38):
fourth monkey series.
On the traditional side it wasinitially with HMH, which is now
part of Harper Collins.
But my next several books wepublished on the traditional
model and there were a couplethings that I, you know, I got
that taste of being indie and Ithink that's what really, you
know, sparked a lot of mydecisions, because you've got a
hundred percent control overeverything from your cover to
(24:59):
your formatting.
You know I hired professionalsacross the board.
So even though I indiepublished, I still had copy
editors.
I still, you know, hire thebest formatters out there.
I wanted to make sure that anindie published title, if it
came out, it was still on parwith something coming out of
Random House, because in my eyesthat's my real competition.
So it had to look likesomething you know coming out of
the big houses.
But so I basically got a tasteof all that.
(25:19):
The economics were a big partof it, you know, because as an
indie author you get roughly 70cents on the dollar, which is
fantastic, and on thetraditional side you're lucky if
you get 15 to 20 cents on thedollar.
So they hand you a nice bigcheck at the get-go, which is
great, but you have to pay thatmoney back and you have to pay
it back in these small littleincrements.
So I did a couple of books onthe traditional side and then I
(25:39):
really started questioning allof this and I went to my agent
and I said listen on this nextone, which was like a caller's
game, I'm going to retainEnglish rights for myself.
I'm going to put them outthrough my own press.
You're welcome to sell all theforeign territories like you
normally do, and I'm in about150 different countries.
You know 20 to 30 differentlanguages or so, so there was
still a big market for that.
(25:59):
But that was basically my firststep as a hybrid author.
You know we traditionallypublished the book in some
places I indie published it inothers.
A year after the book came out Ilooked at the list of countries
where it was published and youknow if, if, if, it was in a
language or not in a languagewhere I wanted it to be, I hired
my own translators and put itout there.
Um, so I did that for a coupleof books.
(26:20):
Um then, about, I guess about ayear ago, I finished up a book
called behind a closed door, um,which started getting a lot of
interest from the Hollywood sidestraight off the bat, and they
dubbed it 50 Shades meets DavidFincher's the Game.
So my agent wanted to take itout.
He was like, let's just shop itand see what happens.
So he shopped it to all the bigpublishing houses.
(26:41):
We had a number of them thatwanted it.
It was going to go to auction.
We ended up signing a film dealbefore we signed anything on
the publishing side.
And then I got a phone call froma friend of mine who works at
Random House and she said listen, we're about to offer on your
book in the auction but you needto turn it down.
And I asked her why and shesaid well, we're about to lay
off a bunch of people, includingthe editor who wants your book.
(27:03):
I got a similar phone call fromsomebody at HarperCollins about
a week later and then all theselayoffs happened across the
board.
And if you've ever known anauthor who has a book that's at
a publishing house and you loseyour editor like that book can
end up in limbo for a very longtime.
You know, a lot of it dependson your contract.
You may get your rights back,you may not, depending on the
language in that contract.
But that all scared me because Ididn't want this book to have
(27:25):
that kind of fate.
So I kind of reached back to myfriends in finance that I had
worked with years ago.
Simon Schuster had justrecently been bought by a
private equity firm.
So I reached out to SimonSchuster and ultimately I struck
a deal where they let me createmy own imprint, with Simon
Schuster handling my print salesand distribution, which is what
I'm doing now.
(27:46):
So I basically have the best ofboth worlds I get to act as an
indie author, I can put outwhatever books I want whenever I
want, but I have Simon andSchuster as the backbone.
So they're getting those booksinto all the places that I
couldn't get to as an indieauthor.
So you'll find them in Costco,in the grocery store, at the
airport, you know all thoseplaces indie authors are, you
know, at this moment from, youknow can't get into.
I'm able to get my titles there.
(28:08):
So that's what I'm doing nowand, honestly, it makes a lot of
sense because from a financialstandpoint, you know I'm
collecting revenue as an author,as the publisher, um, you know.
And from simon and schuster'sstandpoint, it makes sense too
because you know I'm thepublisher, I'm taking on the
financial burden of the cost ofa print run, let's say.
But if the book does well, theyprofit too.
So, like, it made sense forthem to partner with me.
(28:29):
And I think you, you're going tosee other authors, other
publishers, do similar deals tothis in the next couple of years
.
Because to me it's the nextlogical step of this.
Because if you take a big indieauthor who's selling a
ridiculous amount of books, youknow a traditional publisher
will waive a million dollarcheck in front of them.
That author is going to say no,because they know the economic
side of it, they know that theydon't need that money.
Up front, they, they know thatthey don't need that money up
(28:50):
front.
They'll make it back on theother side.
But you know, if you change ita little bit, you offer a deal
similar to the one that I signed.
All of a sudden, that indieauthor can get their title into
a lot of different places andstill collect the same revenue
that they were getting before asan indie.
That's a no brainer, I think,from from all sides.
So I think that's how we'regoing to see this entire
industry go.
Alexia Melocchi (29:09):
I think it's happening globally and you hit
the spot on that one.
I think it's happening also inthe film distribution arena.
I mean, you've seen how manymovies you're seeing now ending
up on Netflix, have already beenseen on HBO, there've been HBO
productions or Amazon, but thenthey end up in Netflix.
And with a lot of indiefilmmakers too, when they're
making the smaller movies, Ialways say to them don't get the
(29:32):
big sale with Apple or Amazonor whatever, because once you're
tied into that, that's it.
You know you have no other waysto exploit your film.
But if you start with a niche,for example, if you're having,
say, you know, a sports movie,go to all like the platforms
that are putting out sportsfilms, you know, so that you're
going to have your audienceright there.
Play that out, play thedifferent niches and whatever
(29:54):
the themes are of your movie,and then you can still end up
with the big boys or girls orpublishers.
So I think it's happening on aglobal scale.
It's happening in the musicbusiness, it's happening in the
streaming and in thedistribution model, in the
production model.
It's happening in the authormodel.
Now I'd like to address theelephant in the room, because
obviously there's all this talkabout AI and chat, GPT and all
(30:18):
of that.
Are you finding this toolhelpful to you as an author?
Or is that kind of taking youoff because you're seeing
everyone and their motherthinking I'm going to be an
author and I'm just going to putan idea into ChatGPT?
Write me a book and I'llpublish it, and it will do just
as well as your book.
J D Barker (30:39):
What do you think?
We are years away from thatactually happening.
At least, that's what I tellmyself when I get up in the
morning.
Yes, I use all the differenttools, the AI tools more because
I really want to understandwhere they're at from a
developmental standpoint.
My personal favorite is onecalled Claude, which isn't
available worldwide.
There's only a handful ofplaces where you can get it, but
(31:00):
it just seems to write verywell certain things so I can
feed a book into it.
I can tell it give me the textfor the back of the book.
You know there's 200 words, theback of book blurb.
It can do a fantastic job atthat, and if you don't like what
it gives you, you know you giveme something else.
You just type that in 10seconds later it gives you
something else, so you can tweakthat.
You can get a tagline for yourbook.
It's fantastic at creating adcopy, but can it write a book?
(31:24):
No, because essentially, whatends up happening?
And if you, if you think aboutthe tech itself, you, and if you
think about the tech itself,you know you're talking to an
encyclopedia All it can do isregurgitate what it's already
been told, which means that itcan't have an original thought.
It can communicate things thathave already been done, but in
my world, you know, like thatjust doesn't work.
So, like for an AI, one plusone always equals two, but when
(31:46):
you write a thriller, one plusone really needs to equal three.
You need to surprise people.
You know, I write books withJames Patterson.
If Jim and I get on the phoneand we brainstorm an idea, he
will come up with some crazythings out of left field that I
would have never thought of thatan AI could never possibly come
up with, you know.
So that's our edge as humans.
Our voice, our writer voice, isour other edge.
(32:06):
You know, I don't think an AI isever going to be able to
duplicate my writer voice.
And you know, like I've beentold.
You know, like people have said, if you want to duplicate
Stephen King, all you got to dois feed all of his books into an
AI.
It's going to learn how towrite like Stephen King.
If you think about it, that'sactually not the case.
You would have to upload everyexperience that Stephen King,
the person, has ever had, everyinteraction he's ever had.
(32:26):
All of that would have to go inthere and then maybe it might
be able to duplicate that.
So that's never going to happenand if it does, I think it's
probably years away.
I mean, ai has to have anoriginal thought before it even
becomes competition at thispoint.
Alexia Melocchi (32:41):
Yeah, and I think right now, as you said,
it's useful to cut the hours ofthe more tedious things like
writing the back of a book coveror maybe doing you, you know, a
little quick synopsis so youcan put it into your book
presentation and then you canedit it yourself.
It can give you that, but Idon't think it was like that.
(33:01):
We're talking about this at theproducers guild of america
awards and they said they said,producers, your job is safe with
AI because, ultimately, whenyou have to go in the room and
same thing like you're talkingwith authors and you have to
pitch an idea and you have tosay, you know there is a shark
that speaks, you know AIwouldn't be able to come up with
a story that because they'regoing to say, wait, sharks don't
(33:22):
speak.
You know it's going to go intothat, but we, you as a
storyteller, as a champion ofstorytellers, you can invent the
craziest things in the room andyou can pitch them.
You can't pitch them as amachine.
And I think that goes like yousaid.
Somebody would have to get intoyour mind and to your thought
of saying, oh, what is Jaythinking about all day long?
(33:43):
What does he want to do next.
How does he act in thissituation?
And I think that's somethingthat is probably, hopefully, 100
years away, before we evenclose it to my famous question
that I asked you before, becausethis has been such an inspiring
conversation I Obviously youhad this challenging moment at
the beginning of your career,which was you gave yourself a
(34:05):
deadline with your wife, yousold everything and you just I
got to do this.
You know or forget about it.
Were there other moments, onceyou peaked in your career
although there's never really apeaking?
Were there other moments whereyou've encountered a major
stumbling block which you had toget out?
Your get yourself out of it,and what type of mindset did you
(34:28):
use or what type of logic didyou use to get yourself out of
it?
I know it's a very complicated,long winded question.
J D Barker (34:36):
I tend to.
I mean, there's always anotherbrass ring.
You know, like there's alwayssomething more that you want to
obtain.
You know, like I won an award,so now I'm an award winning
author, I can put that on thecover.
I hit a bestseller list, now Ican put that on there.
I'm a New York Times bestseller, I can put that on there.
But in my mind, like I'm inreality, my highest place on the
New York Times list was numbertwo.
I've never actually hit numberone, which means bestseller on
(35:09):
the list.
So I'm still striving to getthat number one.
There's always something bigger, but I tend to look at what's
working and what's not.
You know, everything in my lifetends to come down to that.
You know, I make a lot of listsof what's working and what's
not.
Very early on I looked atbranding.
You know, if you walk into abookstore, particularly if
you're on the traditional side,they're going to make the title
of your book huge and the authorname is this tiny little
scribble.
You know, at the top or thebottom that you can't see unless
you get right up on it.
Um, but you know, if you lookat the big name authors, you
(35:29):
know the ones that are sellingwell the stephen kings of the
world.
Their name is huge on the coverand the title is this tiny
little scribble, um.
So that is the ultimate goalfrom my standpoint.
So I started watching my bookcovers that were coming out of
the traditional market andpushing for that.
Ultimately, I created atrademark version of my name,
which I now license back.
So if one of the traditionalpublishers wants to put my name
(35:50):
on the cover of the book whichthey have to do if I write it
they have to actually pay me alicense fee in order to put my
name on the cover.
I developed my own covers.
You know the images and Ilicensed those back, you know.
So rather than having apublishing house create the book
cover for me, I do it and Igive them the option to license
that cover, and I do that on aworldwide basis.
And it may seem silly, but likethe cost of creating the cover
(36:12):
is maybe 1000 to $2,000 to get areally good one, I license each
of them for anywhere from 500to a couple thousand dollars per
country.
The same image over and overagain.
So, like I look at every aspectof my business and figure out
what's working and what's not,how to capitalize it, how to
monetize it, how to improve it.
Recently I just created a newline of co-authored titles, you
(36:33):
know, because as an individual Ican put out two to three books
a year at my writing pace.
But to me that's not enough.
You know, working with JamesPatterson, I think, has fed that
that a little bit.
I've studied his business modelvery closely.
So now I'm working withco-authors.
The book behind me we Don't TalkAbout Emma.
I wrote it with a guy who livedin New Orleans for a number of
(36:53):
years.
He knows the city inside andout.
He knows the people, he knowsthe places, he knows the smell
of the city.
New Orleans is a character byitself.
I could write a book about NewOrleans and I could probably
Google enough to be able to fakemy way through what I needed to
.
But having somebody who reallyknows that city inside and out
it adds an authenticity to thestory that I couldn't create on
my own.
So I seek out co authors thatcan bring in expertise from left
(37:16):
field to add a dynamic to thebook.
So I am always looking at waysto expand my craft and my
business model and takeeverything to the next level.
Alexia Melocchi (37:26):
Wow, I absolutely love that.
And, again, I always say, artis a collaborative, you know
effort, whether it's writing abook or making movies, and it
always ticks me off sometimeswhen there is either a filmmaker
or you know well, filmmakershave to do their own directing,
although sometimes it can be two, but you know or authors, you
(37:47):
have to be open.
I mean, look at you, you'recollaborated with James
Patterson, so I love that youare open to bringing in other
authors who can give somethingmaybe different inside your
books.
How do you do thosepartnerships, though?
I mean, are you the lead authorand then you just find somebody
?
Or can somebody come to you andsay, JD, listen, I have an idea
(38:10):
.
I've been writing this book.
I love to partner up with youbecause I love your brand, of
course, and I love your name andI love your expertise.
Can we do something together?
Are you open to this type ofcollaborations?
J D Barker (38:24):
Yeah, I mean they all come together.
It's like the Hollywood stuff,like no two books have come
together the same way.
I spend a lot of time mentoringother authors.
It's something I really enjoy.
You know, taking somebody, likeif they've got that writer gene,
like I can tell you know.
Like it just jumps out.
You know this person can write,but they may not understand the
business, they may notunderstand pacing, they may not
understand this or that.
(38:44):
I've been there, done that so Ican teach them all those
different things.
So when I bring in somebody toco-author a book, it's a give
take on both sides.
I'm getting a book out of it inthe end, but they're getting a
major education in how to writea thriller.
And then, on the flip side, thatbook is going to come out
through Simon Schuster, which issomething that would be
(39:06):
difficult for many authors toobtain.
It's going to be in virtuallyevery bookstore.
It's going to be anywhere whereyou find books.
It's going to come out in a lotof countries.
That gives them a big leg up.
So when they write their nextbook on their own, they
basically walk into that projectwith this education behind them
.
So they're writing a muchtighter book than they would
have before, and they've got anestablished track record on a
(39:26):
worldwide basis.
So when they walk into an agentor a publisher they can say,
hey here, this is my last book,here's how it's done.
And that agent can use thatsame knowledge.
They pitch that book in Spanish, they can talk to a Spanish
publisher, and that Spanishpublisher is going to be able to
see that person's name, asalready sold books in their
country.
So it just gives them a hugeleg up.
Alexia Melocchi (39:47):
Oh, my goodness , I love that.
I'm already thinking about somany people who could use.
You know who could use workingwith you on that, and I know
there's only so many hours inthe day, but I love that you're
you're giving back this way.
How does your wife feel about,like you, being such a
multitasker and being so busy?
Do you even have any time foryour personal life?
(40:08):
And I know you live, you know,outside of the city, I think
right now, and so you're havinga little bit more of a quieter
life, correct?
J D Barker (40:16):
Yeah, we, when we were in Pittsburgh and the book
started hitting, we realizedwe're living in Pittsburgh and
we don't have to.
So we started looking all overthe country.
We ultimately we bought a houseon an Island right off the
coast of Portsmouth in NewHampshire, which we which we
love.
I can look out my office windowand I can see the water.
You know, the elementary schoolthat my daughter goes to is
right across the street so shecan walk to school.
It's it's very picturesque.
(40:38):
So we've we've got a fantasticlife.
One of the things that honestlystarted happening when the book
started to take off.
You know they start coming outin different countries and I
would get interview requestsfrom these different places and
they would come in at like crazyhours.
You know, like we need you at11 o'clock at night, we need you
at two o'clock in the morning,four o'clock in the morning, and
initially I took all of thembecause you know that's what I
was told to do, but it just youcan't sustain a career, I think,
(41:01):
doing that.
So in today's world I have aquitting bell that runs at three
o'clock every day, like that'swhen my business day ends, no
matter what.
So any kind of interview, youknow, any business activity.
Everything's got to be donebefore 3 pm.
Three o'clock.
I go fora, run around theisland to kind of clear my head
and then I come home and I spendthe rest of the night with my
daughter and my wife and we justwe have family time.
(41:21):
So you know, I just try toenjoy all of it.
Alexia Melocchi (41:26):
There's always a need for discipline in life
and you know what?
Thank God for Zoom right andthank God for you know, all the
positive aspects of thispandemics and lockdown is that
now you probably don't have togo on so many book tours.
You can do your own book tourover Zoom and talk to everybody.
You don't have to get on theplane and travel the world.
You can do this like this,which I'm sure makes it easy and
(41:48):
makes the family happier andeverything.
This has been such a greatconversation, jd.
I'm so happy that we connectedand you gave so much information
and so much wisdom and so muchinspiration already to me
personally and respect,obviously, for the craft um.
We're getting to the, thefamous life quote, life mantra,
(42:12):
um that you know your go-to um.
Have you thought of one sinceyou and I started and pushed the
record button?
J D Barker (42:21):
yeah, so, early on, working with james patterson,
one of the things that he toldme is at the top of every, he
writes everything by hand.
He does it on a notebook and atthe top of every page he writes
the words be there.
And you know, it sums up a lotof different things.
You know and we really drovethat home when we were writing
the first book together you know, be there in the scene, with
the characters right right theredown on the ground, know, like,
(42:43):
be in that scene, be in thatmoment, um.
But you know, that's it's takenon another meaning to me
because, you know, as anautistic person, I tend to focus
very heavily on either whereI've been or where I'm going.
I don't necessarily spend awhole lot of time in the actual
moment, um.
So you know, for me, be therealso means, you know, be there
(43:03):
in the present.
You there in the present, enjoywhatever's happening around you
right now.
Don't dwell on the past, don'tspend time thinking about the
future, but be there in thecurrent moment.
So I try to do that too.
So be there, I think, isprobably my go-to phrase right
now.
Alexia Melocchi (43:19):
I love it and you certainly are applying that
just by your own life rule thatyou stop working after 3 pmm and
you're taking your time to bewith the family and thank god,
like I said, you're busy, but atleast you're physically there.
That's, I think, the joy ofbeing an artist, a writer, you
know, a producer, whatever.
We don't have to be outclocking in and clocking out.
(43:39):
Like you said, we can still bethere for the people that we
care about the most.
So it's the one that we justmentioned and I see on the wall.
Is that the next book that isout right now that we need to
plug in and promote?
When is it dropped?
Has it already dropped?
J D Barker (43:57):
I have so many books coming out, so my last one
depending on when this airs, mylast one was called Heavier the
Stones.
It released in November.
We don't talk about Emma, whichis the one that's behind me.
That one comes out in February.
In March I have a book comingout with James Patterson called
the Writer, which is one of thefunnest books I think I've ever
worked on, definitely myfavorite of the ones I've worked
(44:17):
with Jim.
And then in May I've got acrazy one about a haunted house
on an island and it's based on.
It's based on a real house thatI see every day when I go on my
run around the island, and thetagline for the book is for a
haunted house to be born,somebody has to die.
So you basically know where thestory is going and it's one of
those books.
It was the scariest book Ithink I've ever written.
(44:38):
I worked on it for a number ofyears, had to keep putting it
aside and putting it aside, buteventually I got it done.
Alexia Melocchi (44:45):
Years I had to keep putting it aside and
putting it aside, but eventuallyI got it done and it's a
frightening tale, Wow.
Well, this interview is goingto become coming out early in
2025, definitely in January.
So, yeah, so we'll have.
We'll definitely be able tomention some of those books and
even the ones that are comingout.
Whenever you know you havespecific drop dates, I mean, do
let us know.
We'll continue to plug theepisode.
(45:07):
It has been such a true joy andpleasure to have you on my show
, JD.
I cherish the conversation andfor any of you who have
questions about JD and you enjoythis episode, please subscribe,
rate review.
As you all know, I don't haveto repeat myself.
I don't have sponsors.
(45:27):
I'm doing it out of the lovefor the craft, so please do
support me, but also support myguests by clicking on their
website, click on their Amazonauthor pages, buying their books
, because we want to keep themturning out great storytelling.
Thank you for being on my show,JD.
J D Barker (45:46):
Thanks for having me Appreciate it.
Alexia Melocchi (45:48):
It's been great .
It's been great Everybody.
The heart of show business overand out.
Ciao.
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode of the heart of
show business.
If you enjoyed it, please shareit with a friend.
You can also subscribe, rateand review the show on your
favorite podcast player.
(46:08):
If you have any questions orcomments or feedback for us, you
can reach me directly attheheartofshowbusinesscom.
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