In this episode of The Writing Coach podcast, writing coach Kevin T. Johns speaks with his client, award-winning romance author Anne Kane about the launch of her new novella, Kellen’s Conquest.
Anne lives in the beautiful Okanagan Valley. She’s always been fascinated by science fiction and fantasy, so she lets her imagination take over when she writes. The one thing the reader can always count on is that the main characters will live happily ever after, even if they have to defeat a few nasty aliens first.
During the conversation, Anne discusses:
- How winning a contest launched her career as a professional author
- Why she is drawn to romance and science fiction
- Her experiences with both traditional and self-publishing
- Why she joined Kevin’s Story Plan and First Draft coaching programs despite having nearly 40 publications under her belt
- And much more!
Listen to the episode or read the transcript now!
The Writing Coach Episode #176 Show Notes
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The Writing Coach Episode #176 Transcript
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Today, on the podcast, I have author Anne Kane. Welcome to the show.
Thank you. Great to be here.
Can you tell us a little bit about the role that literature played in your life as a young person? Did you read a lot as a child or as a team?
Actually, as a child, the most exciting part of the week was Friday nights, we got to go to the library. And so we’d go to the public library, and I don’t remember how many books we were allowed to bring home, but you could bring books home, and then we’d sit there and read them. I remember sitting there and you’d come to a word you didn’t know when I was very stubborn. You’d try and sound it out. And some of them were hilarious, I’m sure the pronunciation was way off, but that was when I was maybe five or six. I started reading at a pretty young age. The whole family went to the library. I’d hate to age myself, but in those days, we didn’t have 700 channels to choose from the TV.
It sounds like your parents recognize the importance of books.
I think so. Yeah. Like they got books out too. The whole family was sitting there in the evening reading books.
At what point did becoming a writer yourself kind of enter your world? Was that something you thought about growing up?
As a kid, I actually tried to write a story. I think it was about I don’t know a husky or something in the far north, we lived in Ontario, Ontario at the time, so winter was a thing. I remember and I subbed it to some kid’s book. I want to I don’t remember what it was even and at the time of course, they rejected it but they sent me a lovely letter, which I really wish I had a cat I was just crushed that they didn’t think I was wonderful. And that was the end of that. But yeah, that was in that was it for a very long time. Because then you grew up, you get married, you have kids, you don’t have any spare time.
Your schooling, I suspect, was not in the realm of words as much as perhaps numbers.
Yeah, actually, I did not like literature. I did not like English as a subject in high school. I get in arguments with my I actually got thrown out of English class once for arguing. I think it was Shakespeare, and the teacher was arguing, well, this is what he meant by this. I’m going “How do you know? He was gone? You couldn’t possibly have asked him.” Anyway, apparently, that wasn’t a good thing to say to your English teachers.
Did that influence you at all in terms of this idea of pursuing a writing career or was that not even on your mind at that point?
It was not even on my mind at that point. No, it’s just in hindsight, it’s funny because then I go on to become an author. After high school, I basically I stayed home and raised the kids mostly. And I was always good with numbers. My husband was self-employed as a bricklayer, so he ended up doing his books and then I guess at some point I kind of said, if I’m going to do this I’m going to get well paid, so I ended up going through and becoming an accountant.
I think there are a lot of writers out there who wish they were better with numbers and money. At least, I might just be speaking for myself here. I swear, words are my happy place and numbers send my head spinning.
Yeah, a lot of people say that, like, how can you do both? And I’m like, no, actually, you have to be organized, really, as a writer. If you actually want it to get somewhere you kind of got to be organized. And self-disciplined. And so there are crossovers. If I had to choose and if I could make lots of money writing I certainly would. But that hasn’t happened yet. There’s always tomorrow.
Well, we are here talking about your book launch, so there are always more surprises around the corner every time we launch a book.
True, very true.
Take us back to around 2008 when you were first launching your career, or maybe I assume a couple of years before that when you started writing. When did the writing bug hit you and when did the romance genre in particular start drawing your attention?
I’ve always loved just about every genre except Stephen King scares me and makes it hard to sleep and shy away from me. I’m a bit but I’ve always kind of like romance. Um, I lost my husband in 2003. And after that, I kind of struggled with this and I think I started writing because I needed something to fill my evenings and whatnot. So that was it. And then I started I wasn’t really serious for a few years. Probably 2007 I thought I was going to try this. So I joined an online writing group and discovered it’s not as easy as it looks. You start writing you’re like, how do when you came to the end of this or how to get from one point of view to another, there’s a lot to learn. Some of it was just because you’ve read so much you can automatically do it but there’s a lot to learn and there’s still is there always something more to learn? I guess that was in and then I finished the first, and I think my first it was actually a novella. And it took me probably six months to write because I kept going back and rewriting it and I give it to somebody else to read and they go, well, this doesn’t make sense at all. And you’re looking going no, you’re right. That doesn’t make sense for you to have to rewrite that. But you learned a lot along the way. And at that point, I wasn’t really even going for making any money off it. I was totally shocked when I actually got paid for something. It has been a journey and it still is.
You mentioned that first piece was a novella, and I know you’ve published a ton of shorter pieces. What draws you to shorter fiction?
Actually, the first one was because a writing coach told me that practice on shorter fiction and to do to get characters basically for character things. And then I kind of got drawn into one publisher who basically would not publish anything longer than a novella. I just kept writing novellas until recently when I I think that I have few longer pieces in there too. But yeah, a lot of them are very short. And now I find it hard to like, some of the ones they wanted, like under 10,000 words and I’m like, That’s chapter. It’s very hard to tell any kind of story. Unless you’ve got just Christmas dinner scene or something. But, yeah, I’ve kind of gotten to the point where I want to do longer, but yeah, plotting is different for longer.
You’ve self-published and you’ve also been with traditional publishers. Where did you start? Did you sell start self-publishing, or did you start working with a publisher?
I actually the first one I sold was a novella, and I sold it to a publisher through a contest. That was I think they called it the alpha male contest. It was Red Sage Publishing, who at the time were like top-of-the-line publishers, and they published anthology, so there were four stories in every book. I sold to them based on the fact that I won the contest they were running, but then they never really made the jump to ebooks. Which everybody else did. They just kind of fizzled out before that actually went anywhere. So that was that on that one, but I actually got a fair amount of money for that. I just didn’t get any royalties on going because that would, that would mean they’d have to still be up and running.
As someone who’s worked with publishers, and self-publish, how have you balanced those two worlds and do you see benefits or drawbacks each?
They each have their good points in their bad points. Working with publishers is nice because they give you an editor and it goes through a couple of editing things before it gets published, and they handle some of the marketing at least, and they have they’re regular people that buy things, so that’s good, but on the other hand, you don’t have a lot of control over, they have their preferred types of covers. That resists one thing. And like I said, word count, they have a very stringent this is what we publish. Well, not only word count, but content like I’ve had it thrown back at me a few times. You need more romance in this less sci-fi kind of or whatever. So there’s pros and cons. I guess the con of self-publishing is the marketing and that it takes time. Then again, I’ve done it often enough. I said I wasn’t going to do that anymore and here I am doing it again.
In your bio, you mention all your stories have happy endings. Is that just a result of the genre that you’re writing in? Or is that kind of a personal statement that you want to, , put out into the world with your writing?
In romance, which is my genre, even if it’s sci-fi or fantasy, it’s got romance to it, mostly everybody expects a happy ending. They don’t necessarily expect a happily ever after, but my view of the world is that everybody should get a happily ever after. I realized that’s not realistic, but if you want realism, then watch reality shows. I don’t watch those. It’s kind of a personal statement more than anything.
You were saying that you’ve had publishers kind of push back and say, “more romance,” or “more sci-fi,” and obviously you’re doing erotica as well. I’m curious, how do you balance the different aspects of the different genres? Because having read the book that’s about to be published or it will be published as people are viewing this and listening to it. I found the non-sexual parts to be a very traditional kind of sci-fi romance story, and so it got me thinking, how do you mix the erotica in with the other mainstream genre pieces and conventions that you’re working with?
I think at some point, you just decide how far you’re going to go. Are they going to hold hands and run off into the sunset or they’re going to retire to the bedroom or are you going to get to see memory tired to the bedroom part of it is the publishers if you’re going traditional how far they want it to go and I’ve had them telling me you need more sex in here or whatever, in some of them. And the one that is being published I had actually originally intended to go to a publisher, and that didn’t happen, but that’s why it has more erotica in it. I don’t know if I actually balance it. Like if I think about balancing your order. It just happens that way. And like I said, if it goes to a publisher, often at a foot more erotica in it, or you draw it back, depending on where it’s going. I could easily rewrite the whole thing and have it fit the Christian market, but I’ve never actually aimed at the Christian market. I’m not actually sure I could do that. I’m not sure. I could draw that back.
Having read Kellen’s Conquest, the fact that it’s erotic sci-fi romance, and like, right off the bat, boom, we kick off with the sex scene, it gives you the sense of “Okay, this is a writer who very much understands giving the audience what they’re here for.” We’re not easing into the story. We’re like, boom, here’s what you’re here for. We got sci-fi, we got intrigue, we got romance, we got sex. Do you find that you are just a more naturally commercial-minded author, or do you find this is something you learned along the way or does the genre itself demand it?
I think I’m just okay with it. I guess, maybe commercially, I guess more commercial-minded. Okay because I read, and I realize even some of the romances that are considered mainstream, there’s a lot of sex in them these days, at least, unless they actually say that there is nothing in there. And honestly, like if there wasn’t sex, we wouldn’t be here, so it’s not like it’s a horrible thing.
Do you have a sense that for something like Kellen’s Conquest are people here for romance and sci fi and sex in kind of equal amounts? Or, like, is the sex just an interesting cherry on top of the Sci Fi? Or is the Sci Fi just a way to get us to the next sex scene? Do you have a sense of kind of like how the
Most of the readers are here for the whole thing. They’re mostly here for the romance and they expect there to be some sex along with that. And then like, because I’ve written in different genres and then some people are there because the Sci Fi is there as well. Some people won’t touch it because they want werewolves and fantasy and dwarfs and whatnot. But yeah, I think it’s basically what they expect. Yeah, the whole package right. And I do tend to I have been told that whether it’s jumping right into the sex or the guy that got murdered or whatever. I do tend to jump right into the middle of it to start with.
Tell us more about Kellen’s Conquest. My understanding is this was actually a book you wrote some time ago, right?
Yes, yes. This is actually that first book that I wrote that never hit the market. So this is the one that won the contest and this that I actually did pretty good with it. It was originally written because I was aiming it at that, but I was also aiming it as part of a series that never happened because the first book Never got launched. Obviously, I never got a contract for a second book or anything. And I had set up a universe in which basically humanity heads split into people that were genetically altered, which these days actually isn’t that far-fetched. You had the people that were smarter, faster, better, whatever, and then you had the rest of humanity. That was kind of the premise of the world-building. And that’s why it’s one of the author leaks, which basically was the term I was using for the genetically modified Superman, I guess, Superman and women, that’s where this one started out. And it was it was a novella. Because the word was 25,000. And I think once it was all said and done, I think it was 23 something, I managed to stay they’ll let you go under word limits, but though rarely let you go over them. Actually, I asked a publisher once because they wanted me to cut a scene and I was like, and they said because they’re formatting on the books, they publish if it goes over that there’s not enough pages. That’s something I never looked at before, but that’s how it works.
From the time when you first wrote this piece to now, how many publications have you had in between?
Well, if we’re counting tiny, I haven’t actually got a firm number. It’s something around between 40 and 50. Some are really short stories.
Clearly, you are an experienced published author, so what is it like returning to a story you wrote 40 publications ago?
Well, for starters, you read it and go “How much do I want to change?” because I’ve learned a lot in the meantime, and I decided I didn’t change a lot. I did change some things where I went wow, that’s really clunky. Who let that one go through? But yeah, it was interesting. And it was because it had been so long. I think it is probably what I am looking at maybe 10-12 years at least. It was like reacquainting yourself with it. It’s like reading a book you haven’t touched in over a decade. You’re like, Oh, I forgot about that. It’s kind of interesting. And I had actually had notes which I was desperately digging for in my pile of stuff I save on, where I would go with it as a series. I do have some notes for ongoing ones I just, I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to make them like longer full length than just have this as a prequel kind of thing. I’ll have to I haven’t decided on that one yet. But I yeah, I have notes and I do like sci fi romance. I will probably go ahead with making that series.
Something I noticed you did very well in this book—and again, I don’t know if this is a revision you made after you originally wrote it or if this was something you just naturally understood or studied at the time—but both the world building and the backstory with the lead character and the love interest are fantastic in terms of you avoid info-dumping exposition. Was that something you were conscious of in terms of avoiding that kind of tendency for beginner writers to just info dump all the world-building and backstory early on?
Actually, no. And that isn’t something I’ve revised going forward. It was just I tend to write lean if anything. I don’t put enough backstory in is what I get from editors. This is my whole life I have this tendency if I know something, I assume everybody else does too, which isn’t always actually the truth. But yeah, so I tend to go really lean on the backstories or they get sprinkled in in between but yeah, I’ve always done it that way. For whatever reason, maybe because I’ve read so much.
Tell me about the AI dragon in the book. I thought that was a cool idea, especially when it plugs into the guy’s neck.
When it plugs into the guy’s neck, I think I saw somebody plugging cable into their neck in a movie. I was watching somewhere way back obviously, I don’t remember which movie it was. And I thought, oh cool, so you’re hooked right into the computer. And the dragon, I felt that she needed a sidekick, and obviously a dog or a cat was a bit much at that point in history of the world-building and I’ve always liked dragon so I throw a dragon in there. And then yeah, I thought well, if the dragon was actually just an AI then you could plug the dragon in and it’s kind of useful. That’s where I drew the dragon and just kind of a side. Sideways thing. I don’t know.
In terms of the cci fi, there’s certainly kind of the traditional warp-speed space travel type stuff, but I was also picking up a bit of a cyberpunk feel to it. In terms of the conspiracy kind of thriller aspect to the storyline and even plugging into the internet via the AI and stuff. Is cyberpunk a sub-genre of sci-fi that interests you?
Ah, yeah, I like cyberpunk.
So I’m picking up on your influences.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s just kind of something I like. So that’s how it went.
Something I’ve always found is that romance is the perfect subplot. It’s the one genre that melds almost perfectly with every other genre. For example, cyberpunk romance, right? Or sci fi romance works great. I’m much less knowledgeable about erotica. Does it work the same way? Can you meld erotica with most genres the way you can romance?
I think you can. Because let’s face it doesn’t matter where you go. It’s always going to be a thing, right? Yeah, hopefully, hopefully we’re not going to get past that method of reproduction or whatever or just enjoying it. So yeah, I’ve always found that I can pretty much go through anything. So as the broader audience is looking for, I guess.
As a fantasy author, I sometimes get embarrassed when people would be like, “What’s your book about?” and I’ll be like, “Um . . . vampires.” Is there ever a situation where you like, “Um . . . erotica,” or are you just totally comfortable with what you create and happy talking about it?
I’m uncomfortable with it. I’m happy talking about it. I don’t discuss it with the grandchildren or members of the family. I don’t think they want to discuss it with me. When you say all your friends and family buy all your books, it’s like, no, actually, I don’t discuss it with them because, yeah, there’s just a line you don’t want to cross sometimes.
I saw a photo on the internet recently. It was the dedication to a book and someone had taken a photo of it. All it said was, “If you’re a family member of mine, please for the love of God close this and do not read anymore.”
I’ve got two sons and a pile of grandkids, and I’m pretty sure they all know intellectually, but no, they don’t want details. We just avoid that.
I got to meet you recently through my Story Plan Intensive program. I remember on our first group coaching call, everyone was introducing themselves, and one person was like, “I teach reading,” and the other person was like, “I also teach reading.” And then you said, “Oh, I’m nothing like that. I’m an accountant.” In my mind, I was like, “Okay, there is our beginner. There’s the nice accountant who’s going to come in and try to write a novel. That’s great.” Then I got your first week’s homework, and I was like, “Wow! Okay, this person knows what they are doing.” And you just continued to prove that throughout the program. You were just knocking everything out of the park and came out of it with like an incredible outline. What brought you to the program, given your level of experience? What were you hoping to get out of Story Plan and did you get it?
Oh, well, Story Plan, I think you marketed it, and somewhere it said it was about learning how to plot a novel. I’ve done a lot of short stories but not nearly as many full-lengths. I’m thinking maybe three or four. My problem has always been pacing in a plot. In the end, you get it, but you’ve gone back and revised things 2 million times. I’ve always been a Panster. I just sit down, and I start chapter one and write straight through. In my head, I know how things happen, but I don’t necessarily get it down on the page. With pacing, you’ve got to have certain things happen at the right time, and I wasn’t doing that. I kind of in my head knew how I was supposed to work, but I didn’t have any framework to do it. And that’s what Story Plan Intensive gave me. Maybe it looked like I was hitting it out of the park because once you explain how to do a certain section of something, I would go, “Oh, okay! If I do this, it’ll work.” It got me to plot it out, and I’m really happy with the outline I’ve got for the one I’m currently working on. It’s aimed at being 70,000 words, a full-length novel. It really helped. I’ve always been a fairly quick learner. I guess it helps because I’ve watched people go through courses, and they’ve got a certain amount of experience, so they figure they know everything already. So why take the course if you’re not going to listen to what’s being said? I’ve really found it really, really helpful, and since then, I’ve actually joined your First Draft course, which I’ve also learned a lot from. There’s always something to learn, and especially like I said, I’m kind of heading in a, maybe not a different direction, but a different direction where I’m trying write full length as opposed to shorter, and plot as opposed to just closing my eyes and going for it. So yeah, it’s really helped.
Even when you reach a certain level of mastery, it becomes stagnant at some point, right? As an artist, you kind of want to continue to grow and learn and try different things, right? Which is what you’re doing, I think, with this book and with the programs.
Yeah, definitely. Actually, up until mid-summer this year, I hadn’t written in two years because it got to be boring. It got to be, “I have to get this done. I’m on a release schedule.” You need a book that says this, and I wasn’t having fun with it anymore. I didn’t enjoy it. I wasn’t getting that “Yeah, this is great!” feeling as I wrote it. I was getting, “Oh good, we’re done, and I can send it in now.” And there’s always something to learn, so I kind of thought, “What do I really want to do?” And I thought, go for the full length, and if we’re going to do that I need to learn a little bit more about how to do that. So, yeah, I figured I’d give it a shot, and I’d either like it or not. So here we are.
It’s been such a pleasure working with you. I hope to continue to support you in your writing. Tell the folks listening or watching about Kellen’s Conquest where they can pick it up.
Kellen’s Conquest is a science fiction set in the future where humanity has kind of transitioned into those that have been genetically enhanced, not cyborgs, but genetically enhanced and then the rest of humanity. What you’ve got is a group of guys who have banded together. I think there’s about six of them. And they pick and choose what they want to do. They’re basically futuristic mercenaries, and they do what they want to do. The female love interest is not one of the chosen ones. She was kind of a brat who was orphaned as a child and kind of learned how to steal things and make a living however she could. Previous to this book, she worked with Kellen and then decided these two would never mix. He’s not going get married and live happily ever after. And she wanted a family. She never grew up with one. So she took off and then they kind of came back together with and they kind of came back together in that she snuck onto a ship and tried to steal some stuff from and I don’t want to give away the whole plot here, but and then he was basically set up to murder her when she came back. Then he’s like, Hey, I’ve been set up. I want to know who and I want to know why, not that I would ever care about this woman because she’s obviously not worthy of me, but I don’t want anybody to kill her. So it kind of goes from there. It’s available on Amazon in whatever country you are in, and for the first three months at least, it will be in Kindle Unlimited, if you subscribe to that. And for the first week, I’ve dropped the price on it to 99 cents. If you want to buy it the first week, it’d be a really good time to get it at a really good price.
Absolutely. We will include the link in the show notes for this episode. So that’s 99 cents American, which works out to like $14.75 Canadian, I think, right?
(Laughs) No, not $14.75 Canadian. I think it’s $1.35.
I can’t wait to see this book launch and for folks to get into their hands and enjoy it. Thank you so much on the eve of its launch for taking some time to come on The Writing Coach podcast with me today.
Thank you for having me. That was fun.
