We spoke to Jon a couple of weeks ago and found out about his series The Ballad of the Songbird. Now we find out more about Jon, his writing habits and Tepris Press!
What is your approach to writing, or your method?
I’m very much a plotter, not a pantser. Especially on the Songbird books as the continuity is so complex it’s almost impossible to just write by the seat of my pants. Indeed, I’ve already written key sequences in the all the books, including the actual last few chapters for book 7. I know how the story ends.
Every chapter is meticulously mapped out in the Spreadsheet of Doom, along with what happens, which characters are present, and where it links to continuity-wise.
That said, things do change on the fly a little bit. Like some characters get a little sidelined because I don’t have a feel for writing them. Or other characters get expanded roles as I fall in love with them a little bit. Or chapters get shifted around and moved to other books.
I’ll give an example of the latter. The books follow a timeline which starts on September 25th, 2045 for the first chapter of Hunters. By the time we get to Tooth & Claw, it was supposed to be Christmas time. However, putting in those Christmas chapters would have added another 20k words to the total. So, I made the decision to push them over into book 4, Dragonsong, where I have more flexibility.
With the Femme Fatale novels, I can be a little more fluid in my writing. While each book is plotted beforehand, the overarching story is a little more on the fly, so those I do tend to work outside my own plans a bit more.
Where is your favourite place/time to write?
I work full time, so writing really takes place in the evenings or at weekends. To me it’s my favourite thing to do. It relaxes me. I pretty much plough most of my free time into writing these days.
Who is your favourite author?
Honestly, that’s a tough question. I tend to follow books rather than authors.
If there’s one author I always buy books from, it’s Jeffrey Deaver. He wrote the Lincoln Rhyme series, and I’m a sucker for those kind of forensic murder mystery novels. I have plans to try one myself as a spin off of the Songbird books (as mentioned earlier).
What authors do you think most influence your work?
Wow, that’s a loaded question. There are so many.
My favourite book of all time is War of the Worlds, by HG Wells. I’ve read that book hundreds of times. The first Femme Fatale novel is an alien invasion story. I like to reference it as ‘Independence Day meets the MCU,’ but the influence of War of the Worlds can’t be denied.
I took a lot of influence from reading the old Transformers UK comics back in the day. As I mentioned earlier, this was really where my love of ensemble casts came from. The work of Simon Furman also gave me an appreciation of the flawed hero with the way he wrote the character of Ultra Magnus. (I could geek out on this all day, but I’ll restrain myself! LOL)
And then there is the work of Harry Turtledove. I used to read his World War series as a teen, along with a book called Guns of the South. Both are ‘What if’ kind of books that take historical events and tweak them somehow. The World War series is basically ‘What if aliens tried to invade Earth during World War II? While the latter is ‘What if time travellers went back in time to the American Civil war and outfitted the Confederate army with AK47 machine guns?’
The Ballad of the Songbird is really based on the question of ‘What if, in 2016, the world was taken over by Vampires and Werewolves?’ so that becomes the pivot point where my world veers off from the one we know.
Who is your biggest support/fan?
I have two. My wife and my book-wife. LOL
My wife, Jess, has supported me since day one of this adventure. She was the one who prodded me into actually doing something with my writing. She researched how to do it, asked people for help, read the very early (and frankly awful) first drafts of Hunters, and is the brains behind my Instagram account. If you’re looking at my output on JonFordAuthor on Instagram, it’s probably her stuff you’re seeing and her you’re talking to. LOL
Then there is Nikki, my book-wife (the name was coined by Jess), who is otherwise known as indie romance author NT Anderson. We met in 2019 and hit it off immediately. We were both looking to get our first books published and had wildly different skillsets to bring to the table. She’s an editor extraordinaire, and I’m a formatting whizz. We teamed up to form Tepris Press, and our goal was to put out indie books as professional as the mainstream press. She’s my bestie.
What story (published or otherwise) of yours are you most proud of?
I’m very proud of Blood to Earth. While Hunters was my first book, Blood to Earth really felt like a step forward for me. There were some story threads set up in Hunters which I wasn’t sure I could pay off as well as I wanted to, but I really thought I stuck the landing in Blood to Earth. It’s a book that deals with some difficult themes. Grief and loss. Acceptance and redemption. I’m very proud of it.
I’m also really proud of my story in the second Malarkey’s ImaginOmnibus. The prompt was Fade to Noir, and I did a kind of gritty cyberpunk noir detective story. It was a big departure for me as I wrote it in a single character in first person perspective (where I usually write ensembles in third person), so it was a real step out of my comfort zone. It was also a little detective mystery story which I had to try and tell in less that 6k words, which was a challenge. It’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever written.
How did you feel when you got your hands on the first physical copy?
It’s such a weird and wonderful feeling. It’s hard to describe. It kind of came in stages for me. When you’re writing on a laptop screen, it somehow doesn’t feel real. It’s just words in a digital space. My first experience with it being real was the first time I got it printed.
Now, the original draft of Songbird was called Gods and Monsters, and it was about 250k words long. In other words, way too long. We had the file taken to a print shop and had the very first copy of it printed onto practically a ream of A4 paper. I think this was the first time it felt real to me.
After a whole load of editing to get it down to 147k, I got the book file uploaded to Amazon and got that very first proof copy.
And that was the WOW moment.
Holding that very first copy of the actual paperback in your hand, even if it is the first proof, really is a game changer. I couldn’t stop grinning! It’s so satisfying. The physical representation of so much hard work.
And it never gets old. I get that buzz every single time. Every new book I release, that first copy of the book is like magic in my hand. I got the first proof of Tooth & Claw the other day, and though it still needs a whole load of work to knock it into shape, having the hardcopy of it is just so pleasing.
And don’t get me started on when I got the first hardcover copy! Or the first hardcover copy with the dust jacket!
On that note, can you explain the general steps that a book goes through (i.e. beta readers and how many drafts do you write) before a book is ready for publication?
Well, the first step is to write, write, write, and write some more. When I’m finally happy I have a first draft in a presentable state, I’ll send it over to my Tepris Press partner Nikki (author NT Anderson). She’s my amazing partner and editor.
We have it saved to our One-Drive with comments and track changes on, and she’ll start to do her first run through. When she’s done, I’ll go through and address all the issues she’s found. At that point it goes back to Nikki, who prints it out on A4 paper to do a read through old school!
While she’s doing that, I format the file into book format and upload it to Amazon. I then pay to get a couple of proof copies. I tend to do this because a) I don’t have a fancy laser printer like Nikki does, and b) I get to check the cover and formatting as I do my own read through.
At this point I also send out a copy to a few beta readers on the understanding that we’re not looking for any grammatical issues at this point, but looking for feedback on the story flow, characters, and any glaring issues continuity-wise.
As Nikki reads her paper copy, I read through the proof copy and mark my changes with a pen, then transfer these into the working document with track changes on. These are usually things like smoothing story flow (which I find much easier when reading it like a proper book), fixing continuity errors, finding double words, etc.
Then Nikki goes through the document and accepts/rejects my changes and puts her own amendments in. We then do a couple more sanity passes to smooth out as many issues as we possibly can. Once we’re both happy, we upload the final version for release.
You are also one half of Tepris press, how did that come about?
Back in 2019 I started chatting with NT Anderson (Nikki), and we began to share our writing with each other. We both wanted to pursue the self publishing route but didn’t really know how to go about it. So, we went about researching it together. We both had a clear vision of what we wanted for our books, and those visions aligned.
The mission statement was to publish a book that was as close to the quality of a big name publisher as we could. This meant getting proper painted covers, professional level formatting, and professional level editing. The problem is that these things are expensive.
Fortunately, Nikki is an editor, so she took care of that part of the plan. In the meantime, I threw myself into learning formatting for both cover art, interior text, and for ebooks. It took me a little time, but I think I cracked it. We partnered up with a Polish artist called Marlena Mozgawa (you can find her website at: LenamoArt.com) who painted our covers.
We called our little imprint label Tepris Press, and so far we’ve put out seven books, with Tooth & Claw (the eighth) on the way in Feb/March.
They look great, and we’re very proud of how they’ve all turned out so far.
Where can we find out the most up to date news from you?
I do have a website, but admittedly the updates can be a little sporadic on there. For a while it was broken, and I was jumping through all kinds of technical hoops to get it fixed, but it’s back now.
For the most up to date information about my releases and progress reports on my writing, you’re best following my social media feeds.
X (formerly Twitter) at: @_Knightingale_
You can find me on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/JonFordAuthor/
Or on Instagram/Threads/Bluesky at: @JonFordAuthor
TikTok at: @Knightingale71
My website at: jonfordauthor.com
And of course there’s the Tepris Press website where you can find all the latest on my books and that of my partner in shenanigans, NT Anderson: TeprisPress.com
Is there anything else you want your readers to know?
I’d just like to put out a plea to all readers to please rate and review a book on Amazon or Goodreads or similar if you enjoy it. Indie authors like us need the reviews. It helps us massively. Other than buying the books this is the best thing you can do to assist us.
If this interview piques your interest to go read Hunters, that would be awesome. And if you love it (or even just like it!) then please spare a few seconds just to pop along and click on the rating.
Thank you so much in advance.
Lexikon 