Welcome to Indie Publishing Group, J M Frey, and welcome to our author interviews! If you could start by introducing yourself to everyone, let them know where you’re from and some of your interests and hobbies.
What inspired you to start writing?
Fanfic! I am a fandom dino from the very early years of the Internet. I discovered Yahoo! Groups and Bravenet forums, and from there I was absolutely sucked into the world of reading and writing fanfic. Sometime around the middle of university, one of my TAs mentioned that she read my fic and thought it was very good, and that I had the chops to write original stories. So I enrolled in some short story and playwriting classes, and eventually tried my hand at some original stuff. The first book I finished, I trunked, but the second one I shopped around and eventually it became one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year.
What is your preferred genre to write in?
Everything I write is a Romance wrapped in a speculative fiction coat. Sometimes it’s sci-fi, sometimes it’s epic fantasy, sometimes it’s a steampunk action-adventure, sometimes it’s cozy contemporary romantasy, but it’s all about people becoming the bravest and fullest versions of themselves, and finding a great life partner along the way.
What is your writing process?
I’m mostly a Discovery Writer. If I plot a story too meticulously or in in too much depth before I sit down to write it, then I already know how it goes, so I have no motivation to write it in order to figure it out. I know the ending already, so writing it would be boring, because there’s no joy in the coming together of it. So generally I get an idea, something nebulous about a character, a moment, or a theme, and without thinking too deeply about it, I open a new Scrivener file and start writing. I keep track of character traits and things that might turn into themes or call backs or through-lines in the file, and once I’m about 30-40k into it, I step back and try to figure out what the plot structure should be, where it should begin and end, all that stuff. Sometimes this results in a novel, and sometimes this ends up as just a few scenes that, in the end, don’t amount to much. But I save everything in my Morge and Frankenstein things into later books if there’s occasion to use it.
What is one thing you wish you knew now that you didn’t know when you started writing?
That breaking out into the mainstream and becoming a lauded, full-time writer making enough money on their books to do it full time takes a tremendous amount of luck. There is literally nothing a writer can do, there is no amount of hard work or money poured into marketing, that can circumvent the fact that getting your book in front of the right agent, the right editor, the right reviewer, the right critic, the right fan at exactly the right time is pure dumb stupid luck. And there is no way to predict when or how it will happen, and no way to force it to happen out of sheer will or rise-and-grind. So don’t burn yourself out striving for something so random, and so uncontrollable. You can work hard, make a billion TikTok videos, appear at every festival and conference, plan huge parties, spend millions on marketing, and that will move the needle. But sheer dumb stupid luck will still play a part who which books blow up and which don’t. So don’t push so hard to be famous that you forget that you began writing because it was fun, because brought you joy.
What was the hardest part of self-publishing?
I’d had the privilege of having my first eleven novels published traditionally, so I knew a lot about how a book should be formatted, how to market it, how to evaluate market trends to decide on covers, and all that. I am lucky in that I wasn’t entirely starting from scratch. So the hardest part for me was A) deciding to go indie at all (don’t regret it, really glad I did it!) for my twelfth and thirteenth books, and B) figuring out the typesetting! For the first one I just used Word and vowed never to do that to myself again. For the second, I found Atticus, and I was glad I did. It made it so much easier.
If you use a pen name, why and how did you come up with it?
I originally published my academic work as J.M. Frey (very normal to use just your initials in academia,) and so no point in changing it when I started publishing fiction.
Which book is your favorite and why?
That’s not a fair question to ask of an author! (But if I had to choose between my babies, I’d say my novel Nine-Tenths, and my short story The Maddening Science.)
Who are some of your favorite authors?
Anne Carson, Anne Marie McDonald, Diana Wynne Jones, Rainbow Rowell, Sara Raasch, Casey McQuiston, and Naomi Novik.
What are you working on right now?
So many things. I have a book in revision right now, which is due to my publisher at the end of this year. I have another new book in drafting, which I’m hoping to share with an agent in the next few months, and a second different book, which I am writing with a long-time author friend. I have 20-40k done on a few other novels because I spent the last two years unsure which book I wanted to focus on next, and pecked out a little here, a little there, but didn’t complete anything just yet. At least this means once I’ve finished the three I’m juggling, I can hit the ground running with the next one.
How do you handle a bad review?
Screenshot it, send it to my writer friends, pick it apart in the group chat and explain exactly why it’s offensive or wrong, have a good laugh, and then forget it ever existed. Nobody’s book is going to be universally loved, and to take personal offense to someone else’s opinion is ridiculous. Someone not liking my book has literally nothing to do with me as a person, and no bearing on my talent as a creator.
What’s next for you as an author?
Goodness only knows! I’m working on a few different things, so it really depends on what gets contracted first, what needs to move to the front burner and brought to a boil, so to speak, instead of sitting at the back simmering.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Probably exactly where I am. I have a good dayjob, and as much as Id love to be a full time writer, staying at home and making up stories all day with my rescue mutt, I understand how unlikely that is to happen. As long as I can pay my bills and continue to tell the stories I want to, and share them with readers who are as enthusiastic about them as I am, that’s all that matters to me.
If you could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?
Instantaneous transportation. I don’t drive so I rely on transit and it can be so unreliable, or such a hassle, or so circuitous to get anywhere. I feel like I waste half my life on busses and trains. It’s exhausting.
Where is your ultimate holiday destination?
I would love to visit the only family seat in Scotland—my family emigrated to Canada during the Highland Clearances, and I want to go back and see where we came from. And then I’d love to go to Germany and trace the other side of the family, see where the family name first started. (Fun Fact: one of the first written records of my surname is a prison record for a fella named Robert, who got arrested with his buddy Martin for nailing things to church doors.)
What are some of the items on your bucket list?
I want to travel to every continent! I’ve been to each of them, except South America, Australia, and Antarctica. I keep hoping I’ll get invited as a Guest of Honor to a con in the former two, and once of these days I’d love to do a tour of the latter, if there’s an environmentally sustainable and mindful way to do so.
Thanks so much for taking the time to do an author interview J M Frey!
Check out where you can buy J M Frey books below and how to follow J M Frey on social media. If you would like to do an author interview or have questions about our author features, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
******
Author Name: J M Frey
Genre/s: Romance, SFF, LGBTQA+
Author Website: https://jmfrey.net/books/
Social Media Links: Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Wattpad.
Best Link to Where People Can Buy Your Book:
******
At Indie Publishing Group, we’re proud to support Canadian self-published and traditionally published authors across all genres.
If you are writing a book and need any assistance with paperback or ebook formatting, cover design, professional editing, uploading to self-publishing sites such as Amazon KDP and IngramSpark, or Amazon KDP keyword and category research, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We also offer children’s book illustrations and formatting services.
For Canadian authors still considering whether or not Amazon KDP is the best self-publishing platform for them, check out The Complete Guide to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing for Canadian Authors, where we cover everything you’ll need to know about getting started on Amazon KDP for the first time.
