Christopher Meeks is an author, publisher and college teacher. Chris told me about his long and winding road through the worlds of writing and publishing. He first published short fiction in a number of literary journals, and the stories are available in two collections, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea and Months and Seasons. The audiobook of The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea appears on Audible and Amazon. He’s also published the literary novels The Brightest Moon of the Century and Love at Absolute Zero, and the crime novels Blood Drama and A Death in Vegas. In August, his war novel, The Chords of War with Iraq war veteran Samuel Gonzalez, will arrive.

We first met at a writing conference where I heard him speak and then over coffee in Atwater Ca. As good a conversationalist as he is a writer...

When did you start writing? 

I majored in filmmaking at the University of Denver. I wrote my first screenplays then. I added psychology as a second major as I thought understanding people and how they thought would certainly add to my visual storytelling. Then in my senior year, I took creative writing to satisfy electives—first poetry and then fiction. I loved both. I found I could be visual with words. I didn’t need film or film splicers or actors or cameras or assistant directors and the like – I could do everything on the page, and the fiction and poetry I could publish.

You’ve written short stories, plays and novels.  Does one form feel like a better fit than the others?

I love them all, and they each have their own needs, which match my needs when I dive into their forms. Writing plays had been the best of all worlds—working with people as in film, but the playwright has more power and respect than a screenwriter ever does. Still, getting a play produced is almost as difficult as getting a film made, and there’s so little money for the playwright unless it’s performed in New York or nationally. One needs to live in New York to start as a working playwright.

I do feel writing fiction is the most challenging because it’s being one-on-one with an audience. Readers see your strengths and any weaknesses. It’s the form I focus on the most.

What was the impetus to start your own publishing company?

I had an agent at the time, who found my short fiction amazing and thought I had a novel in me. However, he did not want to send a manuscript of my short fiction out, a collection of stories already published in literary magazines. He said, “Fifteen percent of nothing is nothing.” He felt his energy and mine would be better served if I wrote my first novel. He was a great motivator in that way. That novel became The Brightest Moon of the Century.

I complained to a graphic designer friend about my agent and my short fiction manuscript. My friend had worked with me at Prelude Press, a Los Angeles publisher where I’d been the senior editor for six years. He suggested I start my own company, much like Prelude Press. He would design my first book for free. It was my short story collection, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea.

I marketed it as we would have at Prelude, focusing on well-known reviewers and using a PR agency. The first review was in the Los Angeles Times. At that point, my agent, now my former agent, called and congratulated me and said he’d been wrong. That was nice of him to make that call. The book was later mentioned in Entertainment Weekly. It’s done well and now even has an audiobook version.

You’ve worked in different aspects of the publishing world.  What changes in publishing have surprised you the most?

The publishing industry has been changing rapidly since I started White Whisker Books in late 2005. First there was print-on-demand (POD), which meant small publishers didn’t have to print short runs and store a bunch of books in the garage. Books were printed instantly when a book order came in. Then along came eBooks, which meant, for the small publisher specializing in them, that returned books were no longer a problem.

Printed books returned are costly. Bookstores only order if they can return them if they don’t sell. The better the reviews and awards, the more bookstores order. I’ve learned the more orders you get, the more returns you’ll receive. For instance, Shelly Lowenkopf’s short story collection, Love Will Make You Drink and Gamble, Stay Out Late at Night, received great reviews, including one in an important publishing industry journal, and it won an award in the Los Angeles Book Festival. Bookstores ordered a lot. The returns put me in the red on that one. A bunch of returns from a bunch of bookstores can cause a small publisher to go bankrupt.

Marketing is the biggest challenge for all publishers, including self-publishers. Marketing changes quickly. Something works for a while then doesn’t. Over the last few years a number of methods have come and gone (or come and stayed), including free giveaways of eBooks, advertising with certain websites such as Bookbub, running a blog tour, getting many book reviews (from print or web sources), getting many reviews from customers, offering book trailers, and many other things. There is no sure method at this point other than appearing in Oprah’s Bookclub. Maybe have Donald Trump tweet your book.

What are some of the books you’ve published from other authors, and what was it about those writers that spoke to you?

I started publishing other authors when a former professor of mine, David Scott Milton, didn’t know what to do with his novel now that his agent died. Mainly a screenwriter and playwright, he’d published three novels over the years, and he thought he might have to self-publish his new one.

I realized that at over seventy years old, he wasn’t about to learn all the marketing things he needed to do. Also, I read his manuscript for Iron City, and it was damn good. I said I’d publish it. Once I did, I started having agents and acquaintances call. I published a few of those people. Basically, I looked for two things: did I like the book and would it take much editorial work to get it in shape? Also, could I market that particular topic?

The most popular of what I’ve done is the Falling Angeles Saga, by E. Van Lowe, four young-adult paranormal romance novels. It starts with Boyfriend from Hell. Mr. Van Lowe used to write for and produce The Cosby Show along with many other sitcoms. He’s got an incredible ear for dialogue and a great sense of both humor and drama. His stories rocket along. For a few years, TV producers considered making the books into a series.

The agent for another former professor from USC called. She offered The Fiction Writer’s Handbook, a masterwork from Shelly Lowenkopf. It’s built like an encyclopedia and goes over terms and concepts for fiction writers, from novice to expert. I’m proud to have published it.

My most recent author is Robin Winter, who came up with Watch the Shadows, a scary book that takes place just outside of Santa Barbara. Something is making homeless people and small animals disappear. It’s before Trump came along. Ms. Winter came from an agent submission.

You write, teach and publish how do you keep all those balls in the air? 

The balls are falling all around me. I’ve stopped looking at new work from new authors as marketing has changed so much in the last few years, my old methods don’t work well now. I don’t have the money to invest in marketing as I once had. I’m having to rethink where I’m going to go. I have a new book or two to publish over the next year, and also one from E. Van Lowe, but after that, I don’t know. I’m looking for a new agent, myself, so that gives you a sense of where I’m at.

I’m happily writing and teaching. It’s the publishing part that’s frustrating. I also may have a film that may go into production from a screenplay I wrote fourteen years ago.

What are you currently working on? 

I’ve finished writing a literary novel, The Chords of War, which I co-wrote with a former student who fought in Iraq. It may be my best novel yet, and a film producer has optioned it even before it’s published. That took a year of negotiating, and his option period will be up in six months. The man hired a screenwriter, but I sense it didn’t go well. Two other screenwriters are now working on it. Still, I’m not holding my breath.

I rewrote a screenplay on another topic, Albert Einstein, which may be optioned this week. Why Hollywood is calling after all this time, I don’t know.

In the meantime, I’ve been experiencing some of life’s huge challenges: health and marriage issues in particular, which has found me madly writing short stories, which I haven’t done in a decade. I might call it Life on Mars.

What are your top two pointers for writers looking to publish their works? 

The first pointer is that quality is always paramount. Don’t rush to publish, but rather show people what you’ve written, and keep honing your work until it’s brilliant. Writing is rewriting.

The second is that know that as much time and energy that you put into the book, you’ll probably have to spend twice as long finding an agent and publisher or self-publishing and learning a hell of a lot about marketing. It’s important, even if you prefer to be writing.

To learn more about Chris and his work visit: http://www.chrismeeks.com