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Hi Friends…!
Preferred to be known by their pen name only, aKay Brothers (pronounce: AK Brothers) are talented writers. I got a chance to read their book Jason Cage recently. You can read detailed reviews for the same at:
http://thinkerviews.com/books/english-books/jason-cage-by-akay-brothers-book-reviews/
I like the book and in addition to the literary aspects of the book at the large extent, the characterization and multiple tracks going on parallel are done effectively. Though there are many loose ends and I sincerely hope that with coming books in the series, we can see them coupled tightly. I was very curious about their writing process also. So, I have decided to talk to them and try to get answers for many questions playing in my mind.
Thanks Jiten for giving us this opportunity and also for liking our book.
We are story tellers who like to create universes where we can build our characters and put them in situations which challenge not only them but also ourselves.
We belong from a family of storytellers where every learning came with a story attached to it. We read a lot of books in multiple languages English, Korean, Hindi, Egyptian (Most of these were English Translations). We also gather a lot of information from Non-Fiction books like Books on Science, Biology, Ammunitions, Wars, Mythology.
And yes, we have a day job to sustain us as Writing is not something that is paying our bills at the moment.
aKay Brothers – authors of – Jason Cage
Our passions are Writing and Reading and Marketing and Imagining and Day Dreaming.
There was this theory from Einstein which we were discussing a few years back (Maybe 6 to 7 Years ago, Can’t say for sure but somewhere around that time) when we thought of creating something out of it, Maybe a story if we can. That was the time when we started thinking about the arc, the characters, and the overall structure. It eventually took us some 4-5 years to come up with the idea and finally writing it down.
In between, we also thought of leaving this midway a lot of times but the overall premise was pretty strong in our psyche.
Frankly speaking, we never thought of it as a potential bestselling or chartbuster story. It was a story that literally grabs us by our throat and challenged us to write it down. It is more like a prestige issue for us where the characters betting among each other whether we have the skill and the capability to get this to a conclusion or not.
We feel if you are not getting challenged by your own work then what’s the point of doing it. Writing a run of the mill is very easy for us but it also bores us a lot.
We have used the alternate route and we did it thrice. We got published a couple of times with the regular publishers and we felt that way of getting out there is actually detrimental to our own growth.
- Any publisher in his or her right mind will never commission such a story.
- Second, if there is a yes from his side, there will not be enough and correct marketing push.
- Third, a regular publisher will take almost 18 months from first interaction to final publication for any book. We are not living in that kind of a world.
In the age of Netflix do you want to wait 1.5 years to get your book out there? - Fourth, after few months, he will say your book is not selling in the Market since the genre is very niche so write Love story or something like that.
- Fifth, we will never know how many copies actually got sold since no one knows that except the publisher and he rarely tells you the truth.
- Sixth, as compared on our effort, we will get peanuts in terms of Royalty percentage.
- Seventh, we cannot run promotions based on how we want them to be.
- Eighth, we cannot capture the major market for this genre, The US and UK via traditional route.
- Ninth, The book stores don’t know you so you will be sitting in the corner most shelf of their book stores where no one ever comes.
There is not a single point where we think that Ohh we are doing something different. It was the obvious choice from the beginning that we have to go via this route.
The Paperback edition is for the US and UK Audience and it is already out there. In India, one can order it but the cost will be a bit high since the printing is happening in the USA.
When we started our journey, we had a big load off our chest when the book was completed and in the hurry to publish it, we conjured up the cover in few minutes and asked a Freelance designer to design it for us. The result was catastrophic, as you can also see. Not only the cover was subpar, it was also boring, run of the mill and uninspiring.
So, after a month when we got some time to think about the book, the cover was the first thing that came to our mind. We went back to the drawing board, checked the covers of our genres on Amazon, and eventually hired a designer who could work with us to make it a reality.
One book that has helped us a lot in this journey if Derek Murphy and his book – Book Cover Design Secrets You Can Use to Sell More Books. Everyone must read it before deciding the cover for his or her book.
Yes, The whole idea from the scratch till the end product was done by us. We took help of a freelancer designer to add few effects and help us with the 3D version and other versions.
Again, that happened for both the covers so good or bad, it is on our head.
There are three stories in the book– Jason’s, Amam’s, Axel’s. Since we took almost 4-5 years to write these so we wrote one story at a time and finally merged them.
Merging them was a new thing altogether. It was like a fourth story, but this time we had to be extra careful.
Wow, that is a tough one. But still, let us give it a try.
– If you like Thrillers. You should read Jason Cage
– If you like Mystery, You should read Jason Cage
– If You like Supernatural elements, You should read Jason Cage
– If you like Suspense, You should read Jason Cage
If you don’t want to waste your time as the story keeps on building and characters takes ages to get to their primary goal, then you should read this book
We think that makes an okay sales pitch :).
We write daily (At least we try to) but we actually struggle a lot with our first drafts and then with our second drafts. Post which is somewhat becoming less taxing.
We write anywhere, in office, trains, bus, home, Shopping malls, anywhere where we get something to add to our story. We keep on making notes on our phone.
Google has made it really easy to collaborate and we get a lot of help from Google Docs and Sheets.
Anything. We read anything and everything. Mostly multiple books at one time. We have a very short attentions spans so we juggle a lot between Netflix and Reading and HBO. That is why we wanted to sure that our book does not have a point where the reader can flip and change it with some other form of entertainment.
Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Vince Flynn, Stephen Fry, Tom Clancy, James Patterson are the few names.
There is this book from one of our Friends – Fuck it. Let’s do it! How To Start A Blog Like A Pro?
We liked the title a lot and the Neat design of the cover page so we thought of giving it a try.
It is actually filled with some great insights on starting your blog.
But we are looking forward to his next book in line which we hope will help us too- “Fuck it. Let’s do it! How To Boost Your Blog Like A Pro?: 7 Steps to Skyrocket Your Blog Traffic”
Actually, he is the guy who helped us set up our website at Zero cost. And we think that is amazing when people ask you to shell hundreds of dollars just to get a basic blog up and running and here is this guy who did all that for us without any money. His Name is Ankit Uttam.
Our profession is not writing so we can say writing, reading, sleeping, day dreaming and anything that doesn’t involve physical work.
Frankenstein, Harry Potter, All the indie authors who are trying to make it big without a big financial muscle of a publishing house.
We get a lot of inspiration through them, we read stories about how a housewife from a small town is killing it big with her writing skills. These things inspire us to do better.
People, even when they themselves are in trouble, still helping the victims of Floods, hurricanes and Bad Governments. These things are really inspirational and uplifting.
We used to hate them but now we have come to accept them as part of our lives. Earlier, it was a pain to carry a paperback in your already stuffed bag and you can only carry a limited number with you. The second issue was what do you do after you finished a book? You cannot throw it away and you cannot buy a new one since you have limited space in your house.
Also, the cost of an ebook is much lower so with the same budget we can buy a lot more, read a lot more and learn lot more.
The best thing, we don’t have to remember or search for a bookmark every time we leave a book midway.
What we miss is the smell of books and that is something that cannot be replaced.
Eventually, our phones will be our e-book readers. That is what we think not a separate device like Kindle.
Social Media is useful but we only use it for marketing purpose.
There are good things and bad things but mostly it is only about noise. But when you see efforts people put on social media in the time of crisis is something that is one aspect that has made it more reliable than the Governments. So when people misuse the same trust also when they start using it to propagate fake news, the trust depletes rapidly.
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/akay-brothers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ohayobrother
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/akaybrother/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35995376-jason-cage?from_search=true
In addition, you can know more about them through their official website: http://www.akaybrothers.com/
We have till now 100 readers whom we are going to send our future works for FREE. This is just to show our gratitude for trusting us when we started our journey.
We are still looking to expand our list as long we get people who want to read our work.
The idea came up since we wanted to say Thanks to those readers who know us only based on the first few hints of our book.
Over To You:
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