Surprise! "Animated Lives!" Available Now!

Originally I had intended for "Animated Lives!" to come out in May 2012. However, the proofing process moved far more rapidly than I had anticipated and it is now ready for purchase. This book is a bit of a paradox. It is part short story collection/part non-fiction and all fun, fun, fun.

The premise of "Animated Lives!" is that Alwyn Ross is a fictional animation historian who interviewed 20 different real-life animators working in short animated film. In actuality, I conducted the interviews starting in 2005 on the heels of the success of "The Hand Behind the Mouse: an intimate biography of Ub Iwerks" (Disney Editions, winner of the E.G.Lutz Award for best book about animation). It was thrilling to be able to talk with so many brilliant filmmakers working at such a high level of artistry.

If the name Alwyn Ross seems familiar to you, it is because he is the younger brother to Jadwin Ross, the Missionary from "The Missionary and the Brute". While the siblings are vastly different in temperament and personality, they together with their sister Dottie comprise the core of the Ross Family Saga - a sprawling fictional opus that shall eventually span at least eight novels.

I hope you enjoy this unique new book that offers an in-depth inside view of the wonderful art of animation and an interesting new character in Alwyn Ross.

Routine (the dreaded spreadsheet!)

Despite all our great ambitions of sitting down and simply pouring our souls upon the page in a mad rush of writerly creativity, the reality is that writing is often danged hard work. For me at least, I have to build a routine of writing that works and keeps me on task.

For my first book, "The Hand Behind the Mouse: an intimate biography of Ub Iwerks" I had a routine where I wrote my parts primarily late at night. Usually I would wait until the boys were in bed at 9 and then would go down to the basement and type and type and type. Sometimes I'd be up until 1 or 2 am if I was on a roll, and sometimes even if I wasn't! More than once I fell asleep at the keyboard and once I fell asleep with my hands on the keys. When I awoke I had 400 pages of bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb's.

To market to market to buy a fat book

Some folks have asked me what I am doing to take "The Missionary and the Brute" to market. LOTS of things - actually. One of the key things I am doing is mailing out marketing DVDs to independent booksellers. Each is an autorun disk that looks and acts like a website, but is truly self-contained on the disk itself.

Special New Year's contest!

Yes, you too can own a personally autographed copy of the chilling new novel, "The Missionary and the Brute"! Here's how:

Book signing for my Disney book.

To qualify, there are two easy steps:

• First - join this site.
• Then - reply to this thread with a comment and your email address. (Comments are moderated so if your comment does not immediately appear - no worries - it will be added within 24 hours. One comment per entrant please.) 

One lucky winner chosen at random will receive a copy of "The Missionary and the Brute" personally autographed by author John Kenworthy - that's ME!

You know, not everyone in this life knows precisely what they are worth, but I do. Exactly $3.28. Yup. That's right. $THREE DOLLARS and TWENTY-EIGHT CENTS! Woohoo!

How do I know this?

Quite simply that's the average increase in value for autographed copies of my first two books sold on ebay compared to those sold without a signature. $3.28. That means that this prize winning book will have an actual perceived value of $14.95 + $3.28ish...

Not bad.

This contest will be open from now until January 6th. (Over 200 people have registered to win copies of my book on GoodReads. I assume your odds will be much better here!)

I do ask that you please be over 18 years old as this novel has adult elements of sensuality and violence.
After registering - Why don't you stop by other pages on the blog to read about the 'Making of "The Missionary and the Brute"'. I think you'll enjoy.

Good luck!

Charting...

Hey... we're finally on the charts - "The Missionary and the Brute" is now #975,535 in Books on Amazon.com. (My previous books are "The Hand Behind the Mouse" - #227,909 and "Bungee Jumping & Cocoons" - #3,311,955). So it is nestled nice and snuggly betwixt the two for now. More and more people are following this blog and are LIKE-ing "The Missionary and the Brute" on GoodReads, Amazon, LinkedIn, Twitter and FaceBook, so I am happy the word is getting out and know that those numbers will grow and grow! Thanks so much for sharing with your friends. Keep up the good work!

It's not too late to order your own copy with delivery in time for Christmas. If you have a reader who enjoys challenging adult, literary horror - order now here or on Amazon! Great late night fireplace reading. Enjoy!

Interview on Indie Blog

A new interview of me is now live on Kris Wampler's blog about Independent Writers. As a writer himself (Love Train) Kris is interested in the ever-changing way books go to market and the Indie Writing scene in general. Not sure I said anything overly profound or insightful here, but I think it is interesting nonetheless. Enjoy!

Here is the opening bit of his interview.

Interview: John Kenworthy

John Kenworthy is the quintessential eclectic writer, using his various life experiences to craft his writing. In this interview, John discusses how he uses social media and how he directs much of his marketing to independent bookstores.



1. Tell me briefly about your books – what are they about and what motivated you to write them?

My first book, The Hand About the Mouse: An Intimate Biography of Ub Iwerks, was published by Disney in 2001. Co-written with Ub’s granddaughter, Leslie, we tell the compelling story of one of the most amazing minds in entertainment history. Ub is the forgotten man. For me personally, I have always been drawn to those geniuses who work seemingly without ego behind the scenes to lift up technology and art – and Ub is an incredible example of that.

Read more at: http://kriswampler.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/interview-john-kenworthy/

And while you're there - check out his book, Love Train!

The Decision to Self-publish

For most of my life - I have been a writer. For some of that life I actually got paid for it.

But it was always in me - it has always been a way I have defined myself to myself. It makes sense to who I am. The ultimate dream for me has always been, and I think shall always remain, to write for a living.

That is danged difficult though.

My first book, "The Hand Behind the Mouse" was a 'successful' book by most qualifications. I got paid a nice advance, it sold a fair (if not huge) amount of copies, it got mostly favorable critical reviews (minus a couple of fellow animation historians with their own competitive and contrary books to sell) and it even won a pithy award (voted on by animation professionals and beating out one of my heroes - the legendary John Canemaker for that wonderful honor). But it was certainly not successful enough in any of those realms to make it a full-time gig.

Welcome!

Saturday morning, 8:17 am

I just finished uploading my novel "The Missionary and the Brute" to CreateSpace's FTP server. In a few days I will receive a proof to view and a few days after that, it will be available for purchase on Amazon.com and other retailers, maybe even in a few bookstores hither and yon. I traditionally have recoiled against self-publishing, because in the context of my past experiences it implied something quite different, something more desperate than what it has evolved into.

This has truly been an interesting process for me, both in the writing and the ego-levelling realization that this book would by its very nature have to go market in a different way than did my previous work. I was truly blessed to have circumstances fall in place so effortlessly for my first two books and all the little films I worked on.

For "The Hand Behind the Mouse: an intimate biography of Ub Iwerks" (Disney Editions, 2001), Roy Disney himself was behind our project from the start (thanks to Leslie Iwerks' connections there) so we didn't have the whole sales process with which to contend. Prior to joining up with Leslie, I was looking at publishing through a South Dakota University Press - which actually would have been fine too.

Plus, the incredibly generous Leonard Maltin - a nicer human being you will never meet - was an early supporter, so we had that going for us.

"Bungee Jumping & Cocoons" was essentially a work for hire - and perhaps the easiest writing/editing/publishing process I have thus encountered. A simple book perhaps and fun, but I knew that my passions ultimately would take me somewhere else - to fiction.

I have a lot of stories a-simmering inside of me that can only be told in fiction form. I am excited to share the dark, complicated, disturbing tale that is "The Missionary and the Brute" with you and to hear what you think of it. It is certainly not for everyone - it is an adult transgressive tale with graphic imagery and complex thoughts. Think of it as Chuck Palahniuk meets Upton Sinclair in Africa. The form itself is challenging and not a little dangerous - but I truly believe it pays the reader back for their efforts.

This blog will be used in the coming weeks to discuss the process of writing "The Missionary and the Brute" and to share news and details of the characters, the settings, books that have influenced me, other works in progress and the business of publishing a work like this in a unique and fully modern way.

Thanks for reading!
J.