Welcome to the Dark & Stormy podcast, in which I speak – writer to writer – with authors of crime fiction, thrillers and sci-fi. This is a monthly podcast aimed at fans and readers. Each episode concludes with the guest recommending another writer.
My inaugural guest is Alex Shaw, author of the Aiden Snow and Jake Tate series, both international thrillers featuring SAS-trained operators. Alex is from England and has lived in Kyiv and the Middle East. He spoke with me from his home in Abu Dhabi.
Timecodes
0:00 Intro to Alex Shaw
1:44 His Aiden Snow series, Sophie Racine, and the Jack Tate series
5:23 What he’s working on now
5:58 Living in, and writing about, Kiev and Dubai
9:00 How the war impacts his next book
13:28 Do publishers want thrillers on Ukraine and Russia?
15:12 Getting your first novel published
18:07 Setting and writing locales known and unknown
20:05 Evolving your characters across series
24:10 Evolving the writing process and the nature of content
27:12: Business during Covid
30:08 Sales - markets, platforms, formats
31:50 Social media and marketing
34:58 What readers ask about
37:28 Hollywood?
40:12 Alex recommends Jake Needham’s books
Links
Ep. 1, Alex Shaw