Interview with Mark Jeffrey, author of the Max Quick series
I’ve known Mark Jeffrey for a few years now. I’ve always been a fan of his Max Quick series of books, and when I learned recently that he had landed a major publishing deal, I was extremely happy for him. I asked him if I could interview him for this blog, to share his success story with other Independent Authors so that they can get some inspiration from his journey, and he graciously agreed.
As you know, I’ve been a fan of your Max Quick books since you first published them a few years ago. For those not familiar with the books, tell us a little about Max and his story.
Young Max Quick suddenly finds himself alone in a world where Time has stopped, and he must discover the reason why and reverse it. Along the way, he meets others like himself who are mysteriously free in this ‘time pocket’. But the more he and his new companions learn, the more it seems his identity is not what he once believed. Now, he must race against a clock that can no longer tick, before the very world is altered forever …
And that is how Max Quick 1: The Pocket and the Pendant opens. It is the first book of a planned septology of novels. Max Quick 2: The Two Travelers is also complete, and I am currently writing Max Quick 3: The Bane of the Bondsman.
The book was originally self-published on Lulu.com. I also created a free mp3 podcast audiobook — or podiobook — version (available still at http://podiobooks.com) that amassed 2.4 million downloads. That was really the version that took off.
The Max Quick story is a very original one. How did you come up with the idea?
Thank you for saying so … I had kind of a jigsaw puzzle of ideas I’d been playing with for years, all things that interested me. Some were things I found interesting in other books or movies: the idea of someone living for centuries, for example, that came from the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles and Highlander equally. The twist I put on it was to have that extremely slow aging conferred on a 12-yr-old — and to give him amnesia.
So with that one conceit, I now had a) a viewpoint character that was 12, and thus a Young Adult novel that could crossover between kids, adults, etc. and b) a really nice ‘question box’, as JJ Abrams puts it, that I could mine almost infinitely for material. How long has Max been alive? What’s happened to him? What other characters has he met? Why does he have amnesia? There were a lot of places I could go with that.
As for time stopping: I wanted something like The Stand, where my heroes would be confronted by an ‘empty world’. I wanted this because I thought it was better if the kids had no adults to save them, no one to turn to. It was truly all up to them. So I came up with the Pocket — what we called the time-stop in the book. And off we went down the rabbit hole! 
I’ve thought that these stories were worthy of being published by a mainsream publisher from the beginning. Why did you choose to publish them yourself first?
Again, appreciated. I published myself at first because I was very impatient to get them out there. The book industry can take years — as evidenced by the fact that I now have a deal with Harper Collins and the soonest the can publish my first book is summer 2011. So: for me, an ‘internet guy’ by nature, that was just too long to wait. And I’m glad I did it my way — now there’s an audience that’s pretty sizable already in place, and it includes people like Oscar winner Abigail Breslin. There’s no way that would have happened if I’d gone purely traditional.
I know that your books sold well previously, and I believe you built a pretty large following in the process. Would you say that you’ve had a good experience with self/Indie publishing? Would you do it again?
Yes, absolutely. I may not have been able to get a mainstream publisher without the ‘farm league’ success at Lulu and Podiobooks. I was able to prove I could build an audience. And by the time the HarperCollins version of ‘Pocket’ is released, the audience for Max Quick will be very large. Most authors don’t start with that kind of advantage.
It took several years for Max to finally find a home with a mainstream publisher. A lot of people might have given up hope long ago, but obviously you didn’t. Why did you have so much faith in this character and his story?
Oh, I’ve always know that this would work out in the end and have a huge audience. The only thing I didn’t know was the timing of it all. Call that prescience — or confidence — or arrogance take your pick. But yes, I’ve had complete faith in this from the very beginning.
How much work did it take to get this story discovered by a traditional publisher?
Well I’ve been through a couple agents. Then I met my current agent, Margaret O’Connor of Renaissance Literary and Talent. She made all the difference. Once I was with her, it was a quick six months until the Harper deal was closed. The right agent makes all the difference. Your stuff has to be good also, but you need that connected person to get you reads. My previous agents were unable to deliver.
Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other Indie or self publishers out there who dream of achieving similar goals?
It can be done! And now is the best time — here in the future of Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads, you’ve never had a better way to connect directly to readers. But it’s work: you have to market yourself. But don’t be afraid to — that is part of your job. Also, watch my show where I have success stories on every week — ‘authtrepreneurs’, I call them — who started small and made it big: http://bibliotechshow.com
Tell everyone where they can go to stay up to date on when Max Quick will hit bookstores everywhere.
Watch http://maxquickseries.com or follow me on Twitter: @markjeffrey for updates.
Posted on September 21st, 2009 by admin
Filed under: About Publishing, About Writing, Author Spotlight, News, What's Up in Publishing? | No Comments »
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