top of page
Search

A Conversation with Canvas Rebel


An interview with Canvas Rebel where I toot my own horn (I guess)
An interview with Canvas Rebel where I toot my own horn (I guess)

We were lucky to catch up with Jason Lee Willis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jason Lee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Anyone can be a full-time author if they’re willing to be poor. Being able to make a living as a full-time author is incredibly rare. Many aspiring writers (myself included) view their novel ideas in a similar fashion as buying a lottery ticket. You choose the numbers, scratch away at the card, and then sigh when it doesn’t hit. I self-published several books that failed to magically transform me from a mild-mannered English teacher to a famous author.Failure tends to help redefine success. As an English teacher, I prided myself in being able to diversify learning opportunities: my kids were creating podcasts, self-directing movies, publishing short-story collections, and running all over the school building collecting clues in a Norse mythology quest. I was also able to scratch that storytelling itch on a daily basis as a teacher. So as I went back to that drawing board after a short gap in creating books, I reflected on lessons I’d gathered from other authors.First of all, getting a publishing contract does not mean you’ll be able to function as a full-time author. Hearing stories from other authors of bad deals, power struggles, and mismanagement softened the blow of rejection by the mainstream publishing world.And I also learned lessons from self-published authors, who had all the control they needed but got lost in the endless sea of authors in a similar situation. In any given genre, there are countless choices for a reader, so even if an author finds the right audience, it does not mean financial success is imminent.So before I stepped away from being a full-time teacher (with benefits), I knew I had to overcome this harsh reality: the average self-published author sells 250 books in a year while the average traditionally published author sells an average of 3,000 books. At $25 a book, 3,000 copies appears to be a living wage ($75,000) but publishers often keep most of the gross, meaning that the in-pocket amount is closer to $10,000. Yikes! Conversely, selling 250 books will gross $6250 before factoring in the cost of printing the books. Double yikes!Luckily, I can sell around 250 books in a good month, but not all months allow such a volume of sales.Another harsh reality I encountered is that since the advent of cell phones, readers are becoming rare. A black and white, written page? Yawn! Having taught high school English, getting kids to read a page is like pulling teeth.But storytelling is not dead.Folks still like stories, but the format is evolving.So now I consider myself to be a full-time storyteller. What does that mean?I could only “sell” during weekends, which left way too many hours for just writing a novel. WIth time on my hands, and a goal of 3,000>250 books to sell, I diversified the way I can make money by telling stories.My local newspaper needed a sports reporter. Bingo! It doesn’t pay much, but games are usually during the week, which fit perfectly into my schedule. Plus, it allows me to write a completely different style of prose other than writing novels. During my busy summer event schedule, high school sports just go away, giving me plenty of time to work at being an author.I also picked up a few profile stories, and one of them featured a profile of three retired superintendents who’d died recently. My love of history made me realize how much I enjoy bringing the past to the present. While most local coverage is “new” news, I decided that there was a demand for nostalgia.But print is dying, remember?So I created a media company, maplerivermemories.com, where I not only told “looking back” stories but stories that were told through video. Suddenly I found myself as a full-time writer. Between my central gig as an author, a part-time gig as a sports reporter, and the new gig as a content creator featuring local history, I found a way to sustain myself through the ebbs and flows of the year. These three facets of storytelling complemented each other so well. I could decided when/if I wanted to tackle a multi-day video shoot while working around my event schedule and writing schedule.Creating media also led me to an evolution of being an author, too. I realized that more and more people have grown up with social media rather than with books, so I’m now trying to diversify my storytelling. I’ve created two Youtube channels: one allows my inner teacher to explain legends and lore while the other allows me to showcase the ins and outs of being an author. Even though I’m over the hill, I’m also trying to create Shorts, Reels, and TikTok videos that showcase life as an author. It’s just another way to tell a story, right?At the end of it all, it’s still a pretty lean existence. Yes, there’s creativity and joy, but if you’re looking at it as a way to make money, there are much easier ways to make a living.


Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

“Your son’s different, Mrs. Gump.” Well, I take pride in being different. Imitation is viewed as flattery but I don’t want to be a mediocre ripoff of someone else’s style. So I’d rather be sitting alone at the literary lunch tables than following all the rules that would let me exist within a specific genre. Of course, that’s at my own detriment. It’d be easier if I gave readers a formulaic novel, but I’m driven by a desire to look “out of the box.” Love it or leave it, my novels and books will give readers something different. The Alchemist Chronicles, for example, are historical yet also goes into elements of legends and lore more fitting a video game plot. My other series, The Dreamcatcher Chronicles, also combines elements of horror and mythology with family drama and cultural exploration. Even my Bible Study series strives to give the readers fresh new insights rather than just “preaching to the choir.” Librarians struggle with what section to put my stuff. That’s me.There is a disturbing issue facing the publishing world now: AI. Plug in a couple key words and presto! A full-length manuscript that ripped off everything already uploaded into the box. Plagiarism and copyright violations aside, this is only going to reinforce cliches, tropes, and genres to the point that there will no longer be fresh ideas. Take a look at Hollywood. How many movies are reboots or sequels? So I might be scratching out a living, but at least I’m 100% organic and hopefully a fresh read.


What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Eating. Breathing. Writing. Imagine if folks clapped for your eating skills. Well, writing is part of my existence, so hitting that “publish” button has changed me quite a bit.In all honesty, I write so that I can exist inside of my own literary creation. There. I said it. Success is the ability to keep writing.Yet I’ll admit that by getting out there in the market, I’ve discovered something very rewarding: fans. Compare creating a novel to playing in a sandbox. I’d be fine playing in that sandbox all on my own, but as I shape and sculpt a plot device or character, suddenly, I am aware of another kid sitting in the sand box with me sharing the fun of existing in the sandbox. These people not only like the literary world that I’ve created but wait to see what else I’ll make out of sand. Yes, the lone wolf in me almost wants to tell people to get out of my sandbox, but the harder I try to write full-time, the more I’m finding readers who dig my creations. So that’s been an unexpected surprise.


Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Even though my dreams are not to be a NYT best-selling author, it’s still important to work on accessibility, which means I rely on quite a few people (my resources) to help broaden the appeal of my stories. Unlike my early days of self-publishing, I now rely on a team of people to help bring a novel to the world. First, I assemble a team of alpha-readers, who give me reactions to the early drafts of the story. The worst kind of alpha-reader? A nice person. Brutal honesty is important so that you know what’s confusing, boring, or even good. So this is important during the creation phase. Next, you look for a good developmental editor, who will critically read the manuscript and poke 1,700 holes in your story. It hurts, but fixing problems adds scar tissue, and scar tissue will make the story stronger in the end. About this time, I find a graphic designer who has the ability to listen, imagine, and adjust the cover to match your book’s tone. I have to sell it, after all, and covers are what draw the reader in to pick up the book. It’s like bait or lures in fishing. If you pick the wrong design: no bites. So while I’m working with a graphic designer, I’ll also acquire a line editor to look for errors or find ways to say the same thing in a clearer way. Having confidence in the text is important in dark days when the market is cool. So having a good team is an important resource.

Contact Info:


Comments

bottom of page