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On the eve of Cinco De Harwood, celebrating the release of his gritty crime novel Jack Wakes Up, author Seth Harwood sits down and answers some questions on writing, podcasting, and his use of social media to develop a rabid fan base.

It’s amazing to think that just three short years ago, Seth Harwood was a virtual unknown treading the familiar path of rejection so familiar to young writers.  Having taken it upon himself to build up his own community of fans, he now has a publishing deal, and no less a writer than Michael Connelly calls Jack Wakes Up “…a fast, smooth ride on a highway not found on any map.”  On the eve of Cinco de Harwood, also known as the May 5th release of Jack Wakes Up, Harwood shared with us some of his experiences writing and promoting his book.

Can you tell us a little about Jack Wakes Up, and the sequels?

Jack Wakes Up is “an action movie between two covers!” It’s what happens when Jack Palms, a one-hit-wonder action movie star hits the streets of SF to help a friend to make one big drug deal that’s supposed to set them up for life! But when people start turning up dead… Jack finds he has a lot on his hands.

The sequels continue the story of how Jack handles things once he gets involved in the seedy underbelly of SF’s drug life and sex trafficking scenes. As he finds he has a few friends and a lot of folks he can’t stomach, he has to decide how he’ll handle himself and deals with the reality of a target on his back.

Recently Jack Wakes up was reviewed by the prestigious Publisher’s Weekly. How did it feel reading that review?

It felt pretty great. The first line was: “Readers who like their hard-boiled crime fiction violent and gritty will cheer Harwood’s debut.”
I got an email from a friend who congratulated me on the “great review” and that was how I found out about it. So going in I was already pumped! Then I found it and read it. It worked for me! Even more than that though, I was blown away when I found out the book would be reviewed by the NY Times Book Review. As soon as I heard that, I was bouncing off the walls! But both these things solidify that the novel is a real book and is getting published, accepted by the establishment, and put into stores! That’s just a huge thrill for me and the achievement of some very long-term goals!

Others have compared your gritty, urban style of prose to a modern day Mickey Spillane. Which authors do you fell have the most influence on your work?

Definitely guys like Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett , Patricia Highsmith and Jim Thompson. Modern writers like Mike Connelly, Megan Abbott, Christa Faust and Dennis Lehane. But also I go back to some of the folks I was reading before I wrote crime, guys like Ray Carver, Denis Johnson, Junot Diaz. Hemmingway. Fitzgerald. Flannery O’Connor

How did you first get interested in writing this particular genre?

I wrote the book because I wanted to write something fun, something that moves and has action. I’d tried writing a few literary novels and never got quite sure what I wanted them to be about. When I started writing crime, it allowed me to incorporate all of my influences, beyond just reading: to my enjoyment of video games, kung-fu cinema, classic action flicks, James Bond, Pulp Fiction, Scarface, shows like the Sopranos, The Wire and Dexter... you name it!
When I really started working this way there was no turning back. I was having too much fun!

What made you decide to start podcasting your novels?

I wanted to build an audience, get my work out to people. Shopping my book to agents just wasn’t a good use of time. It sucked. So I wanted to let readers (listeners) decide. I wanted to put the book on the internet, but disseminating text on the web seemed less effective than audio, so when I saw people were doing podcasts, I jumped in. I’ve had commutes where I always listened to books on CD/tape, and so it seemed like a natural fit.

Can you tell us about your recording set up? What equipment do you use? Software? What is your process like?

I started out using Garageband to put my episodes together and that’s what I still use. I run my files through Levelator. I started out with a Blue Snowball Mic and now I’ve gone to a Zoom H2, which I love because it saves me from fighting my computer’s fan noise. It also normalizes the files right there in its little housing. I love the thing!

You co-hosted, with Scott Sigler, an author’s boot camp. What was that experience like?

Working with Sigler is always an amazing time. He’s definitely the most caffeinated person I know and we have a lot of fun when we’re together. With Author Boot Camp, we decided to try our hands at teaching the methods of podcasting and audience-building that we’ve used to great success. When I started out, Scott taught me everything I needed to know (he taught JC Hutchins too) and so I knew he’d be great at it. I teach college classes for a living, and we’re both in the Bay Area so it seemed like a natural fit for us to bring it all together. We really just want to spread the word about what we’ve done to other writers. I know a lot of people are out there frustrated with the process of submitting manuscripts to agents, and we want to show them a better way, an alternative that they can drive themselves. The waiting/not-hearing part can be a killer!

Now Author Boot Camp is growing. We’re speaking at a Writers’ Digest conference in New York this September, and will be adapting the Boot Camp into a two-day workshop at Stanford this fall.

You have used social media to great effect in the promotion of your books. What does do you think have been the most successful for you in finding and engaging your audience?

I think a lot of authors go out on the web with a blog or secondary content where they talk about their writing process or the publishing world instead of giving potential readers the writing they focus on most: their fiction (or non-fiction, as the case may be). By giving an audience my novels, they’ve responded to the content in a great way—they’ve become my audience! The struggle was to find a way to get a novel online in a digestible format—for me that was audio.

I’ve also gotten a lot more comfortable with engaging them in audio and writing as time’s gone by. Sure, they get to know my novels, stories, but along the way they got to know me too.

What podcasts do you regularly listen to?

I always listen to Rob Walch, first Podcast 411 and now Today in iPhone. I love Sigler’s work and I’m always checking in on J.C. Hutchins. Dan Klass, the Bitterest Pill, you know there’s just something so compelling about how Dan tells his stories. I’m not even sure how he keeps it all in his head. All those details. I used to listen to Behind the Black Mask, but that’s since closed up shop. And I always listen to Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon from ESPN with their PTI podcast. I just can’t get enough of it!

What book (or books) are you reading right now?

I just finished The Chill by Ross MacDonald, Rough Neck by Jim Thompson, and I’m starting Hell of a Woman, also by Thompson. Next on my shelf is a re-read of Megan Abbott’s Queenpin, last year’s Edgar winner for best paperback original. I’m also reading Dave Zeltserman’s Pariah. I was lucky enough to get a pre-release copy of Personal Effects: Dark Art, and that was an awesome read! That’s me right now. Heavily influenced by the fact that I’m currently teaching a class on Detective/Crime Fiction.

Will we see Jack again? Any new novels on the horizon?

I’ve just recently finished up a prequel to Jack Wakes Up called Young Junius, which explores the early years of Junius Ponds, a compelling secondary character in the Jack Palms world. Ponds grew up in Boston, like I did, so it was really cool to get back to my home turf in terms of writing landscape. There will definitely be a Jack Palms IV, but I’m going to take some time this summer and fall to finish writing it completely before I start bringing it out as a podcast. With Young Junius I was writing it as I went along and podcasting it at the same time. While that was a great experience and an experiment I’ve been heading towards for a while, I think I’ll try not to try it again. At least not for a while, anyway.

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Seth will be doing a series of reading to promote Jack Wakes Up. For more information, check out his flyer.

To see if Seth will be coming to your town, visit his web page, updated constantly with readings.
If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you can read the first three chapters of the book as a free PDF.

More info on the book on his web page.
To order the book, you can go here or for signed copies, go here.