Welcome to the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast. A podcast for busy writers who want to cut through the fluff with exact strategies for launching their author career. I'm Katie McCoach, your book coach, guide, unqualified therapist, and cheerleader. Since 2012, I've helped hundreds of writers become authors, gain confidence, and grow their best stories yet. Let's do the same for you. This is the Writing with Coach McCoach Podcast.
Welcome to another episode of Writing with Coach McCoach. Today we are doing part of our author interview series. I have author Scott K. Haskin with us.
Scott is author, composer, a drummer, and a podcaster. His recent book, he actually released a trilogy and it is called the Universal Court Trilogy. I've got book one, although this is audio only, I do have them all right in front of
me, which is super cool to have them. I love being able to hold the book, so that's awesome. Scott, I'm so happy that you're here with us today.
SCOTT: Thank you. I'm really happy to be here talking to you. I enjoyed so much interviewing you and I feel like you're just flipping the tables on me
now.
KATIE: I know, it's super exciting. I love to be able to do this now. You're the podcast host of the HaskinCast podcast, but you have two more, is that right? Podcasts you run?
SCOTT: Yes. So the HaskinCast podcast is the first one I started by myself. I had worked on two other podcasts previously. And then I started Uriah Heep, the Magicians podcast, where I have reviewed every single song Uriah Heep ever recorded in the studio. As far as I know, I'm the only deep dive podcast that actually has the endorsement of the band. It's really cool because most of them are just like, we're just going to go into all their songs and I actually got the band to endorse it. And then I was a guest on Backtrack's Aerosmith Revisited, where they're kind of going through all of Aerosmith's songs, both studio and live, and making the best combination of mixtapes. And they asked me after being on, I think three times, they're like, you should just be a host.
And I thought they were joking. And then they emailed me after the show and they're like, no, we were serious. We would love it if you just came on the show.
So I am now a co-host of that show since December. So yeah, three podcasts that I work consistently.
KATIE: That's wild. And that's not all you do. So when I met you, your main focus at the time was composing, but now you have branched into so many creative avenues. How do you do it? I don't understand how you do this.
SCOTT: Lots and lots of coffee and ignoring the fact that I own a bed probably helps quite a bit. It's really, it's really a balance. It's nice to have different things to bounce back and forth to. If I'm working on a piece of music, and for some reason, I'm just not happy with it, I'm not finding the thing I want to find with it, I could switch to another piece of music, or I could work on editing a podcast or reaching out to guests or something like that.
So having multiple facets involved that you can just bounce back and forth between, it does get a little tricky at points. Sometimes I have too many things I'm trying to finish at once. So to give you an example, so I did a podcast interview this morning, and this is a video interview. So that's going to take a good hour, hour and 15 minutes to render in the video for YouTube. So while that's going on, I'll probably be reaching out to guests to be on the podcast
and things like that. So multitasking definitely helps when I can do it.
KATIE: Well, you're better at it than me for sure. That's a lot of organizing and trying to keep track of stuff and people and times and so very impressive.
But it seems like doing different things is truly part of your creative genius.
SCOTT: Well, I don't know about genius, but I'll take that compliment.
KATIE: Yeah, take it.
SCOTT: Yeah, it's it gets hard because sometimes there's, like, I want to write a book and I want to work on this album. And you know, I've got these podcasts to do and those have to stay on schedule. So those are, you know, you work everything else around the things that stay on schedule is as you know, it does get a little bit tricky sometimes like right now, not my last album, but the one before it, I'm very unhappy with the way it sounds. So I thought, I'm going to remix and remaster this whole thing. And so I'm I was actually listening back to mixes in between podcasts today and going, okay, I need to correct this and do that, making little notes, and then I'm going to talk to you. And then I'm going to render this other podcast. It's a lot of bouncing back and forth.
KATIE: The way you're talking about your composing and you're going to go back and remaster this is so funny, because it's so much like what authors do now you also know, but you can write a book and then you take a break and you're like, okay, now I'm ready to do what I think I wasn't ready to do before or couldn't see before. So it's very interesting. Do you notice that like, how you move through your projects is kind of the same, even though the avenues or the modes are different?
SCOTT: I think so. I think there's a certain consistency that I have just as someone who produces things, whether it be you know, a podcast, there's like a methodical order of operation, same way as when I mix music or when I even when I write music a lot of times, or if I'm doing an instructional video, because I do different audio tips and tricks and things on YouTube, I definitely think there's a methodology to my process, which really does cross back and forth.
And interestingly, the one biggest difference that I've noticed between musicians and authors, at least when it comes to social media, is that an author will post one picture of themselves, and maybe it's a cartoon and not even them, and 5000 pictures of their books. And a musician will post 5000 pictures of themselves 300 are I just got this one new knob on my guitar. Here's a picture from every angle five times. Yeah, I feel like you don't. You don't get to know authors that well, because authors are commonly reclusive people. I don't feel like I get that connection with authors that I do with like musicians.
KATIE: I wonder if that's part of why you interview a lot of different creatives on your podcast. So you interview other musicians and film composers, directors, and people are writing a documentary, and then of course, authors. So is that part of do you think that's part of why you interview so many people? Because you're like, oh, I'm missing that connection with some of these authors. You are so great at asking questions. You like just pull all these things out of people and you get to learn more about them.
SCOTT: Well, thanks. I do think that as part of it, I really started the podcast wanting to get people exposure, giving them another avenue to talk about whatever their project is. And then it just kind of turned into Okay, well, now I'm curious about the differences between these different groups of people and what's similar and what what they do differently. And it's really been a fascinating journey. I don't really have any conclusions yet.
KATIE: After wait, how many episodes?
SCOTT: I think the one I recorded this morning was 320 of the Haskin podcast.
And it was a 298 or so of your I Heap the Magicians podcast, which is basically done at this point, until the band releases another album, I've covered everything that they've recorded. So that's just kind of on hiatus until they do another album. Funny.
KATIE: But yeah, so you have experience, you've talked to so many different types of people, which is really neat, because you're getting you get a little glimpse into their psyche, which is part of why I'm running this author interview series, because I really wanted to hear from people who have published a book, no matter how they've gone about it, I want to hear the different things that they're all experiencing that some can be translated as we're all familiar
with this, if we're going to be an author, and then other things that are like, oh, you would not have known that would have been part of the process.
SCOTT: Right? Like, I know some authors need dead silence, and they'll go to, you know, a place where they can be completely secluded and, you know, write their book without interruption. And then there's other people like, they'll need music or something to just have some kind of sound because they hate silence in or like I did with the universal court for the last 20 chapters or so of book three, I had picked a specific playlist of music from the show lost, because I wanted to be in a particular zone. And so I chose these particular pieces and just had them on repeat while I wrote those those last chapters.
And even when I was editing it, I edited it playing those same pieces of music.
KATIE: Nice. Okay. So that brings me to a question, do you ever and can you even write to your own music that you've composed?
SCOTT: Yes, I wrote two screenplays. First, the universal court was originally a short screenplay, which you read back in the day. That was just a short 10 minute film that I was going to shoot over a weekend and and, you know, pay everybody a few bucks out of my pocket and just have fun with. But then my producer came to me and said, Well, if you write it as a feature, we can get money and we can make this a much bigger movie. And so I wrote it as a feature, and then I rewrote it. And then I rewrote I think there were nine different versions of it as a feature film, three completely different stories, completely different perspectives. And I still have yet to go back and read those since I finished it now. But I was never happy with any of them. So I went back with the original story that I started with. And after shopping it for a while, because my producer was never able to get me any money. So that was kind of a pointless thing.
KATIE: But a good writing exercise.
SCOTT: Yeah, exactly. Experience. Tell the same story, but now tell it through this character's eyes. And that was that was hard, you know, because you're talking about different emotional connections. If you have two characters, like my two main characters, Michelle and Phillip are getting a divorce. But if you tell that story through one of their eyes, you're going to get a perspective, you tell it through the other eyes, you're going to get a different perspective.
But if you're telling it through a third party, like the reporter, which was one of the versions that I did, he's not there, he doesn't have any emotional connection to them. So how do you build that connection between characters that are your main characters? Now, I tried it as a car accident case at one point, but I found kind of the same thing, I couldn't find a connection that was enough between the two because they were strangers. Right? You know, this couple is married, they've been married for a while, they have a child together. So there's bonds there. There's memories and history that are a lot easier to dig into. And I just couldn't find any other way to get a strong enough connection between the two that was vital for the story to really hit home with people.
KATIE: It's really interesting, because yes, there could be ways that you create that. But it's also sounds like the case of the story was telling you like, hey, this, this is not the version we want to tell. Why don't you briefly just give a little what is the universal court about?
SCOTT: Okay, so as I said, Michelle and Philip are on the verge of getting a divorce, he's been a bad puppy. And in the middle of this, the law of attraction has gotten to the point of kind of cracking the world in half. Because there's people that live every single moment by it. And there's people that have tried it, and it didn't work right away. So they said it was a bunch of crap, and now hate the people that live their life by it. And it's gotten to this point where we're really looking at almost a civil war situation within the United States.
Now the rest of the world, of course, is starting to experience this as well.
And they're kind of watching, well, what's happening in the States? What can we expect here? And waiting to see? So of course, the United States government steps in and says, Okay, well, we have to do something even even if it's a pointless exercise, just to calm people down and prevent war from happening or delay it, we're going to do something. So they come up with this idea of doing a universal court, where the case would be decided by universal laws, like the law of attraction, instead of man's laws. Because man's laws are not always about morality. They're about something a lawyer wrote. And part of the inspiration for this, as the secret had come out, and it was a quickly growing phenomenon, you know, there was a show that was short lived called moral court. And it was kind of the same thing, it was where they would take the case and decide it by morals instead of actual law, which sometimes coincided and sometimes didn't.
And I love that concept. So I thought, well, what if we took that idea, but to a much bigger level, and had real stakes and that sort of thing. That was where the basic idea came from. And then I had the pleasure of shooting for a day on the set of the movie Jason Bourne. Okay, and that, and I was working on the conversion from the script to the novel. Okay, I moved from Hollywood to Vegas, and I got really tired of shopping the script with studios and that sort of thing. So I thought, all right, I'm going to take control of this, and it's going to get released. And the only way that's going to happen is if I write it as a novel, which I thought was going to be easy. Well, I just need to add descriptions. You know, I've already got the dialogue, I just need to add, fill in some blanks. Yeah. And I want it to smell like saffron and, you know, things like that, just add the colors. But as many authors may find or creatives, the story takes a whole new shape.
KATIE: Yeah, that's a different format.
SCOTT: You start seeing things from different angles, you go, well, if I'm going to add this, then you start with a whole nother additional storyline and things.
So between the combination of being influenced by being on a spy thriller movie, and just the process of trying to make a simple conversion difficult, it really changed shape, it got way more government oriented. And that was originally just the setup. But now they're involved, and there's like espionage and all kinds of things going on. It became a much bigger story, which I'm a lot happier with.
KATIE: That's really neat. You started and you were like, okay, I'm going to turn this into a book. And now did you think it was going to end up being three at the time?
SCOTT: Well, the reason it's three was really a marketing thing. A friend of mine who's a New York Times bestselling author had said, you can't release the book this way. Just like one book.
KATIE: Just yeah, because if you're an established author, if you're Stephen King, if you're John Grisham, you can write a 1500 page book, and people are going to buy it and read it. If you're an unknown author, they're not likely to really give you a chance unless they can just take small bites and see if they're interested in you.
SCOTT: So that was really the reason that it got split into three, which became a problem because then you can't just end a book like you have chapters. So now you've got to find a way to make it a big ending and the next book. Endless challenges with this, but I was excited taking it on. There were times where it was incredibly frustrating. I'm like, I don't even care about this anymore. But I felt it was an important story to tell. And I found the energy to stick with it and get it done, obviously, because it's out.
KATIE: Yeah, because it's out. You got all three, you released them.
The first one, correct me if I'm wrong, the first one was released on November 22nd of 2022. And then it was like every other month that you released the next two?
SCOTT: Yeah, every month.
KATIE: So it was November, December and January. Nice. And you self-published this. And now this was not your first foray into self-publishing because I know you published a book, it's Becoming an Indie Film Composer. Is that correct?
SCOTT: Yes. Yes. That was actually a year before we met.
KATIE: Wow.
SCOTT: Yeah. Yeah.
KATIE: And so that was before people were really talking about self-publishing.
You went out and did that. I'm so curious about the difference between, of course, doing it then when people weren't really even aware of self-publishing and how to even do it, but also moving into the fiction space and then doing it now, almost a decade later. What was that experience like?
SCOTT: I think I've blocked out most of the initial experience. It was pretty rough. Interestingly, my brother had released books already. And so he was instrumental in helping me get my book done. What I found fascinating about that was before we published it, we read it 13 times between the two of us and we're like, okay, we didn't find any more spelling errors, no phrasing errors. Everything is clean and it's ready to be released.
KATIE: Wait, this is for your indie film composer book?
SCOTT: Yeah. So we put it out there and then I had a friend do the audio book version. I directed her and she read it because I was not, I'm like, I suck as a reader. I'm not going to be able to do a good job. She's like, you should really do this. I'm like, no, I shouldn't. So she did it and we found so many errors.
You know, they say, don't read your own term papers, right? Because your mind already knows what you said and it just going to gloss over to get it over with as quickly as possible. So hire beta readers, find people to beta read your stuff. I promise you it is worth it. So that was a big lesson I learned on the first one. Incidentally, when I did the third revision of that book, I did redo the audio book myself. But instead of reading the book, I used the book as a guideline and had it more as an open dialogue where I expanded on different things and took a different approach to it. So the audio version and the book version are somewhat different and each worth checking out if you're interested in getting into film composition.
KATIE: I am curious about that because I've heard that if you're going to go with, you know, Audible or something that you have to be very close, like very, very, very close in line with the text. Has that posed any problems for you or do you have them sold kind of in a separate way that Amazon?
SCOTT: Well, they don't check it. There's no checking on their behalf. The only thing that like Audible and ACX, ACX is owned by Amazon and they published the only thing that they check are the audio standards. They leave it to the whoever's producing it, whether it's a production company or an individual.
So the first universal book court is available in audio book. And what the process was, was basically you, you can hire a reader and they'll either take
payment based on the number of words or they'll do a split where you each get 50% of the remaining of each sale. Cause you know, Audible is going to take their percentage and then the remaining gets split between you. And, and the great thing is Audible handles that. You don't even have to do anything.
You just, you each have your account and you create a project as the author, you pick your reader, the reader will, if you want them to do an audition before you hire them, they can do that. You agree whether it's going to be the payout or the split before they even audition typically, unless you just do like an open casting call. But you're going to set your terms in the casting call. You're going to say, well, I'm looking for somebody who's willing to do a royalty split.
Then what they do is once you've agreed, okay, you're the one I want to read the book. And they're like, great, I want to read your book. They will record it and upload the chapters. And then whether you're the production company or the author, whoever's going to handle it, it's your job to make sure the audio is up to your happiness. Like do they have good character voices? Are they inflecting properly? Are they ending the chapters with a bang? Are they, you know, doing this or that?
KATIE: Fascinating.
SCOTT: That's the most extremely important part in the process.
KATIE: Oh yeah. Because you got to get the right reader, you know, definitely it can ruin a book. There is a book that I really wanted to like, because I love the TV series. I'm not even going to say it out loud because I just don't want to shame anyone, you know, in this older book, very, very popular TV show.
And so I was like, okay, well, I like the TV show. Let me go back and listen to, because I love listening to books. So I was like, I'm going to go back and listen to this book. Oh boy. It was so rough because the author, I think this was a time when also like before, you know, it was a lot more where like books for CDs and stuff. And so tapes, books on tape, right? We were really into that for a long time. And I feel like a lot of times the narrators would, they would try and do voice acting, right? Like they would use different tones or they would try to do accents. And so it was a female narrator doing like these really old school Italian accents. It was for four men characters. It was not working for me. I was like, I can't anymore. Like this has ruined the book. So sometimes it can make a huge difference. But I think now there's a lot more of, at least from what I've seen, there's not so much of like the voice acting as part of a book on tape, because I guess maybe now that it's audible, it's like, no, we just can hear it the way that we would read it. I don't know about you though.
Have you experienced anything different?
SCOTT: All the ones that I've listened to, there's what would really be more considered character voices and narration. So you would have, you know, your, your character, Jim, who's 85 years old, he might talk like this. And that's going to be every time you hear him, you'll, you don't even need to say, and
Jim said, you can tell by the voice, you get used to it. So that that consistency from the reader is very, very important. And then you have just your narration, which is just, you know, somebody reading the text. So that's how, how the audio books that I've listened to are, unless they try and do an
ensemble cast. So I, I found the Lord of the Rings, and I was so excited to listen. And I thought I'm gonna, now that I've seen the movies and I know the story well enough, I want to see if I can get past the language of the narration of this, but they did it as an ensemble cast and they were like talking over each other all the time. I listened to 35 or 40 minutes of it. And I'm like, I'm, I can't do this.
KATIE: Oh, that's so interesting. So with the universal court, do you have a male, female narrator?
SCOTT: So I had a female narrator for the first one, and then she had to back out because of her life getting too busy. So she's not doing the other two books, which is a real problem for me, because now I've got, I'm going to have different character voices, I'm going to have a different narrator. We're locked in a 10 year contract for her version.
KATIE: Oh, okay.
SCOTT: The bad thing about it, and I'm really unhappy with this, and I don't want to slander anybody, but this stuff goes on, so you should be, readers should be aware, or writers should be aware of this. You want your books to be consistent. You want it to be a consistent project, just like you write it.
You wouldn't write the first book and then write the second one as if you were living in the South with a Southern accent. And then the third one, like you've moved to Canada and you put A after everything. You just wouldn't do that.
So it really breaks up the consistency, but she didn't tell me when she submitted the audio, she didn't tell me she wasn't going to be able to do the other two books. She waited until I approved it, locking in the contract, and then said, oh, by the way.
KATIE: Oh no. Oh, there should be something around that. That stinks. That really is unfortunate, but I'm also really glad that you're bringing it up.
So any listeners, because I know putting up an audio book is becoming pretty much like you have to do it, because you want to be available on all the avenues, but yeah, there are these things that you have to really consider.
And that's something that I would have never known about before. And what a bummer.
SCOTT: And I have made suggestions to ACX and Audible to find some kind of regulation or rules because I don't feel the authors are protected in that case at all.
KATIE: Definitely not.
SCOTT: They could also, because each book is an individual contract, so they could say, I'll do the split for the first one and I'll do the split for the second one. But if you want me to do the third one, it costs you and they could hold an author hostage in that way to make it consistent thing. But I highly, I know I'm making it sound bad, but I highly recommend doing an audio version because so many people do not take the time to sit down and read books anymore.
Having an audio version will help you because people will listen on their commute. They'll listen while they're walking their dog or taking their morning jog. You're missing a huge audience if you don't put it out there.
KATIE: 100%. Now, have you ever considered, because I know there are some people who've done this, but just having a podcast that was the book. I mean, obviously that would make it free, but I've heard of people doing chapters or the book is a podcast instead of maybe an audio book.
SCOTT: I had never thought about that before. I know that during the pandemic, Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Olsen on Little House on the Prairie, the evil Nellie Olsen, who's like one of the sweetest people in real life. I've interviewed her a couple of times and she's just wonderful. She was reading a chapter a day on Facebook Live during the pandemic to help people. But yeah, I hadn't considered that. I've got somebody who's actually submitting an audition today to do the other two books. For future projects, that might be something to consider. And then the people are like, well, I need to read the whole thing right now. I don't want to wait every week. And I think too, that's the other thing is if you're not listening often enough, then you can lose the characters, you can lose the story, you don't have that momentum. So if you were to do like a once a week podcast, I don't think that would work.
KATIE: You would have to do it daily for something like that. Very interesting.
Just all the different things. But I definitely think maybe put up a chapter on it.
SCOTT: I did a podcast on it. Just talking about the book and the story about how it all came together and all that. But I also have some very short chapters because I believe in short, chewable bites. I'm one of those readers where if I'm like really tired, but I see the next chapter is only two pages, like, all right, I'll do one more. And then it's all right, I'll do one more. And then the sun's come up, I've lost my job. So to make somebody wait a day for a podcast, it's like half a page. Oh, yeah, that'd be rough. You'd have to do some combining and things like that.
KATIE: Definitely. Now, tell me, was it just because you had the experience already of publishing a book before self-publishing that made you want to go this route? Or at any point, did you consider trying to get it published with a publisher? Or you were just like, no, I'm publishing this. That's the end of the story.
SCOTT: That's a great question. Actually, part of the experience came from trying to shop this as a script in Los Angeles. I got a lot of that. We really like this, but we're not ready to shoot something like this right now. And that means it's going to end up in a drawer or a bin somewhere and no one's ever going
to see it until they go to clean out that bin and it goes to recycle. So if you're not in that moment, you're done. At least that's my impression. And I kind of felt the same thing when it was coming to publishers. I had considered having somebody else do all the heavy lifting and all of that. But when it comes down to it, I've not had a lot of good experiences partnering with people. I find that people are really excited to commit and be a part of something, but follow through is typically a really big issue. And already this was like, what, 10 years old already by the time I was working on converting it to a book. So I was kind of done with the waiting on other people because I had had a lot of delays with editors as well.
KATIE: It sounds like you're always kind of planning, like, I'm going to, when you decided you're going to make it a book, some point early on, you must have already been like, I'm just going to put this out there when I'm ready.
SCOTT: Yeah. It was more like, if this is ever going to happen, it's 100% in my hands. And if I have to trust other people to be involved, it's going to get delayed. And I did need an editor. I absolutely needed an editor. And I was doing trade with an editor. And she unfortunately was very, very ill, got very ill shortly after. And that took a year for me to go, okay, I need to move on.
So the duration of it was my fault. But there was also no communication of, I'm not doing too well. I don't know when I'm going to be able to get to this. It was, yeah, I'm working on it, or I started or whatever. So not a lot of good communication that would lead me to go, okay, this isn't happening. I need to get this to someone else. My second editor, and I love both of them dearly, by the way, I don't want to badmouth either one of them, because they're really wonderful people, but life gets in the way. My second editor had a huge hit with a song that she and her husband did. And so she had done a few chapters. And she also had a trilogy that she was writing, and I was doing the same for her that she was for me. Okay, you know, a direct trade. But once this song hits, they were getting all these offers and taking all these meetings and everything else had to get pushed to the side. She really wanted to do it. And she fought me when I said, I think I need to kind of move on. And we would meet up once a year in LA. And after but after like three years, and I think we've gotten 16 chapters in at that point, I just said, I need to, I'm just going to do it myself. Like, if I have to depend on other people, I can't tell them they can't let their life get in the way. That's not right. But this book is never going to get finished if I don't take charge of it. Incidentally, my first editor is the one that actually came back and was able to finish it.
KATIE: Oh, wow.
SCOTT: Yeah, that took another year or so, but we got it done. And she gave me a lot of great feedback. But the one thing I would also suggest to people when when selecting an editor, make sure that you're working with somebody who understands the genre or the type of story you're telling. She is not a law of attraction person. So she was saying, well, we don't really need this in the story. We don't really need that. And I'm like, but it's part of how or why this does or doesn't work. And this is part of so there was there was a lot of notes that I didn't really take because while from a storytelling point, those things may not have seemed important, but from showing whether the law of attraction worked here or didn't work there, or why, how a person was thinking or what their history was or that sort of thing, editors will cut that kind of stuff.
But in this case, it was very vital to the understanding of your conclusion of whether you believe in this or not.
KATIE: And that is part of the great thing about self publishing, right? Because you were able to make that ultimate decision. You were presented with here are things to consider. And you said, you know what, my vision means this. This is part of what's super important to me. And because you were self publishing, you were able to make that final choice. And correct me if I'm wrong, that is probably one of the best parts of doing your own thing, not just that you can't depend on people, but that you get to make the final say.
SCOTT: And it works on your timeline. You know, if you're if you're motivated one morning, and you're like, you know what, I'm going to spend two extra hours on this. And while I have my coffee or whatever, and you can push through stuff, you can make it happen faster. If you're working with a publisher who's got 18 books they're working on right now, yours is in there. Sure. But where does it fall? What's important, they're going to go with the the ones that they're going to get the most money out of first, because you're a business, why wouldn't you?
You'll do them all eventually, but you're not their priority. Self publishing is a great thing. The downside of it is that you are responsible for everything.
Amazon doesn't promote books unless you are in the very top list, which you get there by doing that yourself. Once you're in the top, then they'll feature it on their top sellers page. When you log into Amazon, it'll come up as a suggestion or it'll be on your homepage. But you have to do all the work, spend all the money on the marketing, you have to get it there.
KATIE: Mm hmm. So tell me what it's been like. So you you went through the editing process. And how did you end up putting this together, like formatting it? And did you use like Amazon, like KDP?
SCOTT: The next step after editing was beta readers. Okay, so I'll touch on that first, if you don't mind.
KATIE: Of course, please.
SCOTT: I had 10 beta readers lined up.
KATIE: Oh, great. Okay.
SCOTT:One that followed through.
KATIE: Oh, my gosh.
SCOTT: Yeah.
KATIE: You know, I do hear similar stories like this.
SCOTT: Yeah.
KATIE: Yeah. Okay. It's really interesting. And friends of mine who are authors have said the same thing. Like if you get three out of every 10 that agree to do it, you're doing really, really well.
SCOTT: Again, we go back to the I'm all in until I have to do something.
KATIE: Yeah. You know, it's sad. I have a quick question on that, though.
So I just want to back up a little because this was your experience. But this was how you were able to put your story out and was to provide trades or to
get some of this feedback. But from what I'm hearing, it didn't it doesn't sound like maybe you spent a good chunk of change on an editor. And do you think that had you have done that? It would have been a different situation.
SCOTT: Oh, absolutely. I definitely I mean, not not when my first editor got ill that she couldn't do anything at that point. So that's that's a little bit different. But with my second editor, I think it was kind of the same thing.
I think life just got so much in the way with much bigger things that I don't think money would have made a difference. Possibly when it went back to the first editor, if I had been able to pay, I would have been more on the priority list because she's a professional editor. So can she spend time on stuff that doesn't bring food into her house? Right?
KATIE: Yeah, that's secondary.
SCOTT: And that's certainly fair. I don't I don't just disparage that at all. It's unfortunate. But what happened was I can get this done this weekend turned into next month, turning into in the spring and then in the fall and you know, it just kind of dragged on and on.
KATIE: Yeah, if you if you can pay, that's always going to make you important.
Now, but I think it's great that you were able to figure out a system for, hey, like you don't have to spend a ton of money or if you are not in a position to and you can still put your work out there. And so it sounds like what you did.
And I think this is something a lot of people are are trying to figure out is what are other ways to get high level and detailed feedback or services that you need for self-publishing when you don't have the money to do so. So you offered some trades. What are there? You know, tell me a little bit about that.
SCOTT: It was mostly beta reading, you know, reading their projects for one of the editors. I've been a beta reader for years already. I've done a ton of their books. And then for the other one, she was writing a trilogy at the same time.
She had her first two books done and she would actually send me like if she had just written chapter five, she would send me chapter three. So she was always a couple chapters ahead and I would get chapters every day or every couple of days from her. And that was great because I was able to provide the same service that she was providing for me.
KATIE: Yeah.
SCOTT: With the first one, I had already done probably eight or nine books, I think already there was one that was a series of seven books. So just in that one series, that was already a bunch. But I love her stuff. So it made it really easy to want to do that. What was interesting was I got started as a beta reader from being an audio book director and editor.
KATIE: Oh, interesting.
SCOTT: So Tamara McDaniel, who read the composer book the first time, she was reading for other people. She's like, I could really use a director. So I would direct her and then I would edit the audio and put the finished product, you
know, deal with all the ACX stuff. And I would see things like, okay, on page five, Sally is allergic to shellfish. So on page 93, why is he taking her to Red Lobster for her birthday? I would see little things like that. And I would go back to the author and say, you know, is this correct? Am I missing something?
And that's when I started realizing I'm starting to catch a lot of things that just aren't they're not important, but they are. They're things that people will pick up on. Because there are groups out there that like, here's everything you did wrong.
KATIE: Yes. And they'll crucify you for the smallest mistake. You know, so having a beta reader is so, so vital. Now a lot of times when I talk to some authors about, Hey, I think you need to get a beta reader. And I just want to clarify this. So a lot of times when I talk about it, it's more, I want you to get a reader, a beta reader on this before you move into like a deeper stage of edits. So usually this is more of like, get someone who's just, who's just going to give you some of those basic insight more like, Hey, this character's not working or this, you know, the pacing, or even if they can't even explain too much, just more of that general reader insight. And it sounds like in your case, as you're talking about beta readers, these were maybe people who did a little more like of a proofreading aspect.
SCOTT: Yeah, it's, it's kind of a combination for me because when I've done it and I don't even really know the definition, like what a beta reader is supposed to do, I just know, I'll read the book. If so, if you say I wrote a book, would you beta read it for me? I will just mark down everything I find that's out of place to me, anything that stands out to me. So I could say, I didn't understand this phrasing, or I think if you phrase it this way, it might work a little bit better. Just anything that stands out to me, because if you don't know about it, you don't have an opportunity to fix it. But you have to separate yourself from the project and just say, it's the author's book. I'm just pointing out things that I had questions on. Anything that, that, you know, made my, made me stop reading. Did it, did it make me pause? Then I need to point it out. And what you choose to do with it as an author is 100% up to you. Most of the time, I have no idea what you changed. But if you're going to beta read, I would suggest you have to know your author too. You have to know their personality. I try to throw in a little bit of humor with it as well. You know, feedback is hard at any level. You shouldn't get this document and just go, Oh my God, why am I an author? You know, you just shouldn't. So if you're, if you get, you know, 130 pieces of feedback, and like every fifth or sixth one makes you smile, then it's not a hard mountain to climb.
KATIE: Right? Yeah, that is a big, that's definitely a really difficult for a lot of writers. And I know for myself too, even if someone said all the good stuff, but there's just like this one, you know, but this doesn't work. I'm like, Oh, what?
SCOTT: I'll just say, if I had a swear jar, I would have gone bankrupt, putting all the money in there. It's not an easy thing, especially when it, when it's a, it's a story that you're really passionate about. I mean, think this, this book span like 13 years by the time the final was done. So you're talking countless revisions, different formats, different, you know, all kinds of angles. And to think that anything was out of place by the end of it is painful, but you also
have to take it with a grain of salt. Like, okay, you're seeing this, is there a way I can explain it better? There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, whether you agree or disagree with the feedback, that's just something that they pointed out.
But you have to get away from your own ego and away from your connection and look at it as a writer. And not you writing it. It's hard.
KATIE: It is. You know, okay. But so now that being said, it sounds like because you've had so much experience doing it for others, you have a better sense of how to do it for yourself.
SCOTT: Yes. But again, you can't do it for yourself. I mean, you should.
No, I meant. You should do a pass before you give it to a reader.
You should do a pass of the book, but you cannot, you cannot beta read your own book.
KATIE: Oh no.
SCOTT: But that you're able to dissect feedback and realize, okay, this is, this is just feedback I'm getting that I can dissect and figure out what do I need to take? What can I look into? And remember that it's just to make the story better, whether they're a jerk or not in the way they provide the feedback.
There still could be nuggets there. You know, if you end up in a bad situation, you get the worst feedback ever. There still could be something that you can pull and be like, okay, but what is, what led them to feel this way and do you feel that had you not had all the experience where you've given that feedback to other people, you wouldn't have been able to handle receiving feedback the same way. I would have had a much harder time with it.
KATIE: Absolutely. Yeah.
SCOTT: In fact, I would suggest really for all authors to beta read a book or two. Yeah. You know, it's like I tell actors and I tell directors, like a director should act in a film and an actor should direct a film. You should understand each other's, you see, you learn to work together better. But I think for the author, it's a little more self-serving because you'll learn to accept feedback better once you've learned what it's like to give it.
KATIE: Exactly. Once you're trying to, you know, help encourage someone and also give them criticism, but that keep it constructive, but be honest, but you know, and it's a lot and like not everyone can do it. Of course it is not, you know, there's a difference between a lot of, you know, some beta readers are at the level where you provide the sort of level that a feedback you provide where
it's very hands-on and like, I'm going to give you everything. And then there's some who they're just going to say, I like it. I don't like it. And you're going to say, well, can you tell me more? Maybe they'll give you a teeny bit more, but you have to dissect where that's coming from. And that is hard to do.
SCOTT: Well, and the problem is sometimes the reader can't necessarily explain what it is that they don't like. They can just say, there's just something about this that doesn't sit right with me and they may not be able to define it. That's where having multiple readers really makes a difference. Because if you have five readers and three of them are saying there's something wrong with this, then you know, if it's one person, you can go, okay, so one out of five had a problem with this. Is it more likely them or did I not get honest feedback from the other four? Were they rushing through it, not paying attention enough?
Because there's a level of trust that comes with this. So you should still revisit it, even if it's only one, but the more people that give you that same feedback, the more serious you should take it.
KATIE: I totally agree.
SCOTT: I definitely think my kind of frame of reference is like if three people say the same thing, you need to look at it no matter what. My other thing too, that I always believe is even if three people say something about, they could say very conflicting things, but it could be kind of on the same, like they
love this character or they love this moment. Another person hated it so much.
Like I cannot believe the character said that. You got to look at that and be like, okay, why are people having very different opinions? There is of course bias and everyone has comes to the table with their own thing. Or maybe there is something that you set up earlier that's like, oh, you actually put them in that frame of mind, but it takes a while. It's hard to dissect that. And of course, giving feedback is going to get you a lot closer to be able to dissect what other people have, because you see what you're thinking as a reader. And then there's the trigger factor or what I like to call the trigger factor. I sound like I'm selling a seminar.
KATIE: Tell me more. I like this.
SCOTT: I'll give you a musical example, because I think I can state it this way the best. So there was one of the Uriah Heap songs that I had reviewed. Of course, I post every episode in social media. And somebody had written in and said, oh, I love this song. It reminds me of when my dad used to come home from work and we'd have a cup of cocoa and he would tell me a story before I went to bed. And then somebody else responded to their statement about this memory and why they're attached to the song is this memory. It's got nothing to do with the song, whether the song or not. It's the association. So another person chimed in, and this is what I hate about social media, and said, well, that's not a very good song. You should like this other song because it's a better song.
And it has this and that. And I'm like, you're not listening at all. It's got nothing to do with the song. So what you can do is you can trigger a memory or an association or something in somebody that may have nothing to do with your book. It's that associative memory. So if you only get that piece of feedback from that one person who's had that triggered experience, you have to look at that and say, well, is there actually something here? That needs to be dealt with? Or is it something that really just triggered them and set them off?
So there's so many different factors. There's no real way I can say, here's how you work with beta readers. But you have to, the one thing you have to do consistently with everybody is put them at ease and say, I want you to tell me everything you see that you think is off. If it made you stop reading, you need to let me know. Because like I said, if they don't tell you, and some people are too shy. At the end, they're just going to go, Oh, I really liked it. You need to be clear about what you want from them. And give them a safe space. They need to know it's okay to say everything that they need to say. Just say, just don't be an ass about it. Don't be like, again, you still haven't learned how to spell this word.
KATIE: Right. Like, you know, that's not helping. And if you find that you're working with someone who is giving you feedback, and you know that they are just doing it to not be helpful because it gives them some sort of superior feeling.
I don't, can I, I don't know how to speak.
SCOTT: Superiority?
KATIE: Yes, exactly. And so like, you know, sometimes you will come across that.
I know that I think everyone, if they've joined some sort of critique group, at some point, they will experience the person who just wants to feel better about their stuff. So it is, it's tough, but it's also necessary as you're, you're, you're sharing here. It's really necessary to get that insight before you publish. And if possible, try to get it from a few sources.
SCOTT: Yes. And I'll give you two more pieces of advice from my experience, both as a beta reader and working with them. The first one is set deadlines.
I need this by otherwise it will just float out there in outer space and they'll get to it. I can't wait. I don't want to let you down, but you got to have, you got to set deadlines. The other thing is consider whether you want them to read the whole thing and give you one pile of feedback. Or if you want, send me your document every 10 chapters. That way it's not so much of a mountain to climb and it might be a little bit easier to deal with. And again, in smaller bites.
The other thing too, is that it helps if they give you a reference, you know, chapter three, page five, you know, like, cause otherwise you could be searching that book for hours trying to figure out what they're talking about. So having that, so I guess that's three pieces of feedback because math is hard, but those
are the things that I would suggest just from my experience will make it a lot easier on you.
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KATIE: Now at this point, I'm curious about you went through this process, you got the beta reader feedback, put your books up and tell me a little bit about like now your books are out there. What is it like?
SCOTT: It's weird. Before I put the universal court up, I had done three coffee table books called my what what happened in Vegas series.
KATIE: And those were definitely worth checking out.
SCOTT: Yeah, yes, thank you. 450 things I actually heard people say while out on Vegas. I can't say that certain substances and maybe exhaustion didn't play into some of those. But what happened was after I had put the second one out, I was working on the third one, which was severely delayed by the pandemic, of course, because we couldn't, you know, nobody was out. Amazon said, we're going to give you an author page. I didn't request that. I don't know how it happened. But I had three books up there already the composer book in the first two Vegas books.
And so that made me feel like I was an author, like all of a sudden, I'm like, wow, I've been recognized as an author. Anybody can put out a book, but now somebody of stature somewhere said, this guy's an author and that that was powerful. I was very powerful. It's really neat. And so it had that feeling like now I actually have a dedicated page on Amazon that says, these are all the books by Scott Haskin on one page. And I really like that because I can just link to here's all my books, as opposed to the music where they're all different pages. They're all over the place because they don't have a consolidation that I found for music yet. And then to be able to combine everything, here's all this music, here's all these books like have an artist page would be the ultimate, but that's what I have a website for. Whenever I go to that page, and I just released two more books. So now I have nine on Amazon altogether.
KATIE: That's amazing.
SCOTT: Thank you. But it's weird. Like, I don't really like being an author is not my primary thing. It's being a composer. And now I feel like a sense of responsibility as an author, which is kind of strange. I don't ever intend on writing another fiction book. I had about--
KATIE: You never know.
SCOTT: Well, that's the thing. This was such a tough experience. Doing the universal court. I mean, like I said, 13 years, all this waiting, all this counting on people and all that stuff really made me not want to go through the process again, even if it's just down to, you know, an editor and beta readers.
I had I was maybe 20 chapters in or so to a horror novel, which I was really excited about. And I had, I think 19 other book ideas in my folder. And the folder is just kind of sitting there in my whatever, maybe someday I'll work on
these because I'm just not inspired to write another book at this point. But then I wasn't inspired three weeks ago and came up with an idea. And then in a week, I had two more books. So yeah.
KATIE: Yeah. So I just saw that you literally Yeah, you didn't even tell me and suddenly you're like, I have proofs of a book. And I'm like, What are you talking about? I already have your books. I'm holding them. What proofs of what book? And so tell me about what you just released.
SCOTT: Okay, so this literally from conception to upload to Amazon, including learning how to do book covers, because I had hired out for all the book covers, right? Again, it was it was, I don't want to bother anybody with this. I don't want to wait on people. I'm just going to learn how to do this once I'm wrong.
And I don't have the graphic design component. So I don't have the I have the understanding of how to put it together physically how to do sideways text for the spine, how to do you know, the placement and place the fonts and the color boxes behind the fonts and all that. I don't have the creative graphically, to be able to do a beautiful book cover. I think these are good for what for what they are. But the first one I have to get the title, right, because it's ridiculously long, which I'm not sure is a good thing or not. But it's called the hashtag inspiration, hashtag cloud porn, or creatives and non creatives
is the first one. And then the second one is hashtag sarcasm, hashtag cloud porn for everyone. So the first book is part project inspiration and part just like general life advice. And coupled with a lovely picture of clouds, because I find that people kind of go nuts for the cloud pictures that I post, much like they did for the phrases I used to post from the Vegas strip. And then I turned that into a book. And I thought, well, why don't I do the same thing with these cloud pictures. So I have like really nice, pretty cloud pictures for the inspiration and then like dark stormy, you know, you should you should seek shelter kind of clouds for the for the sarcasm.
KATIE: Nice. Oh, that's fun. So every page is a photo with text on it is what I'm hearing. Okay, very cool. And so like, how long are each of these?
SCOTT: I did what was it? 50? 55? I think, because I wanted to do them in color.
I felt it was very important to be in color. Like the Vegas books have pictures, but they're all in black and white. And there's 100 pictures in each and 450 quotes in each of those. These are I think, yeah, 5055. Because I really wanted to keep the book size down. Because the more the size, the more it costs.
KATIE: That makes sense. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's, that is like a huge, you talk about publishing and traditional publishers and people are trying to pitch their book. A lot of times people are like, does word count really matter? And we're like, yes, because especially as a debut author, they're only going to pay
so much to get you started. So like, every word costs money. So that's a really yeah. And even with self publishing and stuff, had you spent money on an editor, and proofreading and stuff like that, it would have been the same, like the more words, the more costs a lot of times it is by word. And obviously, oh, is it okay?
SCOTT: Well, if they're not doing the split, if they're doing the flat fee, that fee is based on the number of words. If they're doing the split, then it's based on sales.
KATIE: That's so interesting. So I want to go back to that really quick. So you ended up doing this, the split is what I'm gathering from your conversation.
Okay. So do you would you still do that next time, or do you think you would end up doing the flat fee situation next time?
SCOTT: You know, I probably would do the split. Because I think part of it is the readers also get known, they have their own level of followers and celebrity within their communities. And if you're doing a split, it also gives them a reason to promote the work and get the word out to their communities. So you could be reaching people that you wouldn't necessarily reach as an author, because now you're tied into the following of that reader.
KATIE: Wow, okay, I wouldn't have thought about that. That's really, that's quite interesting.
SCOTT: Plus, there's no out of pocket. So there, you know, that's also very helpful.
KATIE: I know. And that is very helpful, of course. I didn't even know that was an option that was offered. So that's that's so that was through ACX.
SCOTT: Correct.
KATIE: And yeah, and that gets posted, of course, to Amazon and Audible, which are, you know, the biggest retailers for books anyway. Of course, like, if you're not on Amazon, you know, hopefully you have a really good deal somewhere else.
SCOTT: Yeah, I hope so.
KATIE: Yeah. Right. Whoever, whoever you have a deal with your publisher is going to get it on Amazon.
SCOTT: Of course. Yep.
KATIE: Yeah. So I know that self publishing royalties, like all the money we make, it's probably not huge, right, as a self publishing author, especially as you're newer, because it takes a long time to build it. But how does it feel when you get to like, look and see, and you get those earnings and you're like, that's just mine. All I did was split it with Amazon for whatever they take.
But like, that's it. That's mine.
SCOTT: I'm probably in a minority on this one. I don't know how helpful this is going to be, but I don't look. I literally just get the the notice and I see a deposit and I'm like, okay, and that would be for a combination of, you know, the various books that I've got on Amazon. I do the Kindle and print options.
I have a couple copies on hand in case anybody wants to sign copy that they can get through the website. Yeah. But yeah, I really don't because I think it's kind of like music sales. Like I get a ton of plays on Spotify and that, which don't add up to anything. I mean, I'm not getting a coffee at McDonald's for for what I make on Spotify. It's point zero zero seven cents per play. So you're not, you know, Taylor Swift is one of the only people that's making money on
Spotify. But I think I would find it depressing that if I were to look at the breakdown and go, well, I only sold one of those or I haven't sold that in three months, you know, I just think I don't get caught up in that. I put it out there.
It's it's the world's now. It's up to them to do what they want to. I'll post about it here and there, make the information and the links available on my
website and I'm not a good marketer. I'm a creative and that's like marketing just goes right over my head. I wish I could hire out for that. That would be the ultimate for me is just to put that in somebody's hands and go, whatever
you're going to do, you're going to do. I'm just going to keep creating stuff because that's where that's where I'm best serving.
KATIE: It sounds like a dream, but I feel like no matter what, even if you hired someone, some hired it out, a lot of times you're still going to be in it.
They're going to be like, well, you need to do this. You know?
SCOTT: Yeah. Right. And then the, the, the, the work, like the physical work, you'll have to approve this and that. And then, then, well, I have to show up and they tell you to are the things that they're, that they're posting to those, that phrasing, does that fit with my, is that something you would say?
KATIE: Yeah. Yeah.
SCOTT: I mean, and everybody is so lawsuit happy now that it, well, even like the, the Johnny Depp, Amber Heard case, you know, his attorney said something and Johnny Depp had to pay for that because his attorney said it not on his behalf, but on his behalf at the same time. And so he has to pay for that.
So I'm like, I don't, I don't know that I would be able to trust anybody to do that. It's sad, but I'm also not a good marketer.
KATIE: So no, no, no, I get it. I'm not like that great either. And a lot of times I have before had people help me post content and I actually have pulled
back on that and I have someone help me with creating visuals because I'm absolutely horrendous. I have no visual artistic skills and that's okay.
Other people do. And they're really good and fast at doing it. Like get the people who are good at that stuff.
SCOTT: Right.
KATIE: So I like having someone create some of that stuff for me, but then it's feels w eird ifit's not my voice that's going out there. And anytime I have done that, it's felt very like not aligned, just partially why I don't put stuff out there that much, because then I want to be on it. It's also a lot of work and I don't have the time for it. So it's tough. And that's a huge part of being an author. But I think that it sounds like you're going about the right way. You're putting this stuff out because you love it. You're just creating new things.
You're not letting yourself get wrapped up in the numbers or in some of the pieces that could take away the joy and the reason that you were doing it in the first place.
SCOTT: Right. Yeah. And it's important. Because there's a change that happens in people when you turn your joy into a business and you can lose your joy for it.
If you're depending on, okay, well, I've got to make X sales this month, or I can't pay the rent or my mortgage or the car payment or whatever it is. If you become dependent on it to that point, and you're not already raking in a good amount where you don't have to, you're getting the mailbox money, it's enough to live on. It can really destroy your ability to want to do anything else. And if it's doing that, then it shouldn't be a business. It should be just something you enjoy.
KATIE: Yeah, I totally agree with that. As someone who's, I started this because I love doing it, started my business, but definitely have hit burnout many times because I'm like, well, I have to make money. How do I make like, and then it becomes work. And so then there have been many times where I've had to recalibrate and be like, okay, why am I doing this again? And get grounded on that. But it is hard when you have so many other things coming at you. And so I know that many authors face that, especially if they work with a publishing company. Well, now there's more, it's not just on them. There are other people involved, other people who are going to make money when you make money and that becomes something else.
SCOTT: Yeah. And the other thing is too, is that a lot of authors are editors.
And if you're editing other people's books, you're not working on your own and you can get burnout. Just burnout looking at text for hours and hours at a time.
And for you, you're putting programs together. You're doing different things.
And do you find that you're putting your own projects to the side because you have to do this because it's your business?
KATIE: Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing things, even stuff that I want to do for my business, but that are not maybe necessarily moneymakers or maybe are going to be a long-term, it's like a really long game and short term. I'm like, well, but I have all these clients to take care of. I have these other things to do.
And so it's like my passion project, even for the business has to be put.
Now it doesn't have to be, but I do because I struggle with prioritizing when I'm like, well, but I have to do with all these other things or I need to just make the next project because my kid has to go to daycare. Things like that, you know, even the podcast, like I love this podcast, but it's hard to constantly prioritize when it is truly I'm doing this just for the joy of it.
SCOTT: And that's, you know, one of the things that I've tried when I'm a little bit mor e overloaded with things is I'll say, I need to move everything forward a little bit. So even if I only do one task for each of those things, let's say I'm mixing an album, I'm working on a book, I'm beta reading for somebody else, you know, all these different things. I've got to do something on the album, something on the beta read and something on the book I'm working on. I've got to do something to move it forward every day. Even if it's a little thing, it doesn't matter. Even if it's just reformatting my chapter title, whatever I need to do, that's going to get it closer to completion. That keeps that commitment, but it doesn't lock me down to, well, I need to spend four hours on this every day and set such an impossible goal that eventually you'll just do nothing.
KATIE: That is great. I'm going to give that more of a shot because I'm definitely like someone who I've always, I think this is why I've struggled with sometimes the editing projects because I used to do the full developmental edits where I'd provide comments and edit letters and they could take on average like 30 hours a book. And it would feel, I would never feel complete until it's done.
And then the moment it's done, I got to move on the next one. So, and I like sitting and finishing a whole project, but it's kind of impossible. Obviously, I'm not, I'm not going to sit there for 30 hours straight. So that's great.
I like that because you can feel like accomplished. I love little hacks like that. So I love that. And I feel that kind of brings me to my question for you, has having your hands in different types of creative outlets been part of the key as what kept you able to keep creating and stay in the joy for so long?
SCOTT: I think so. Like I said, if, if something's not working on one thing, I can just go work on something else and usually I'm, I'm able to find something I can do, but I think for me that has really helped it, but it's also a hindrance because if I'm, if I'm taking on one project, I'm probably taking on five at the same time. And so it takes longer for, for each one of them to get released and get that satisfaction that you were talking about that. Yes, I finished this.
And you feel that huge sense of accomplishment because it takes longer because I'm doing more things at the same time. So it's kind of a double-edged sword.
It is nice to have that variety, but it's also just takes longer to get everything done.
KATIE: Totally true. Now, I don't know if you still do, but you would take walks on the strip. Cause you live in Vegas. I would, is that part of like, this is what gets you like kind of refreshed a lot of creativity, especially since you started like listening to everything you heard.
SCOTT: Yeah. Well, I'm happily able to shut that all off now. It took a couple of months after finishing the last book to not hear things anymore. Every once in a while, I still do. I'll still hear something just bizarre and go, well, if I ever wrote a fourth book, that would be it. But I usually wear earplugs while I'm going down the strip. I still walk once or twice a week. In fact, I was just out last night. I got to get out of the chair. I don't do a lot of physical stuff anymore. I'm in a chair from the time I get up until the time I go to bed.
So I need to get up and exercise move. In fact, I just added to my list that I need to do something at least 30 minutes a day. I have a Wii Fit so I can take a walk without leaving the house, but I need to get moving. I need to get muscles working and blood pumping and all that. It's just unhealthy to sit as much as I do.
KATIE: Yeah. It's good that you have been able to get yourself to do these things. I have to say, I don't know what your drive is. Like, how do you have this drive that you're able to like you have or you're, it seems like your whole life, but definitely since I've known you, which has been over a decade, you've been so good at just like doing the thing, just doing the next thing. How do you do it?
SCOTT: I think it's just a love for magic. Well, I think it's a combination of the love for it and the sense of accomplishment, you know, to spend two or three months working on an album and get that album released. And I have the most wonderful graphic artists that I work with, Kelly, that does my albums. And I want to get her artwork out there. So it's like another incentive to finish the album, you know, so that people can see this amazing image that she's created.
And so that's part of it. I think that sense of accomplishment, that's something that I really crave. I like getting things out there for people, whether they choose to accept or experience them or not, that's on them. But there's only so much time and there's so many things I want to do while I'm here. I think that's the, it's more like negative reinforcement, I think. But that time thing, that time factor that says you're not going to be here forever. So whatever you want to do, you better work on getting it done.
KATIE: Yeah.
SCOTT: You know, I'm 50 now.
KATIE: Are you really?
SCOTT: I am, yeah.
KATIE: You're 50. No way, I would have never guessed that, number one.
SCOTT: Thank you. A lot of people say I look young.
KATIE: Yeah. Yeah. I was still thinking like maybe like 45.
SCOTT: I appreciate that.
KATIE: Yeah, but well, happy, when did you turn?
SCOTT: July. Yeah, I'm not sure I can reveal all that.
KATIE: Okay.
SCOTT: It's been a while. As the clock ticks on and my body is not what it was when I was 23, something falls off, I bend over to pick it up and I hear something else drop off and I don't even know what it is. So there's that physical factor that the fear, just the fear I think of, there's going to
be a point where I can't do this anymore. So while I can do it, whether it pays my bills or not, it's what I'm here to do. And so for me to not do it, I don't want to be doing anything else. I don't want to travel. I don't want to do a lot of all these things that people seem to enjoy. I just they're not exciting to me.
What's exciting to me is creating and putting something out there for people to enjoy.
KATIE: So cool. That's amazing. This has been a lot of fun talking to you. I'm always been impressed by you and just how you're just always creating stuff. And you also are just, you're probably the most supportive person to, I think, everyone in your life. You've always been so supportive to me. And I know that you are for so many people. And I can tell that you're always just like, I love when you love seeing people do stuff. You really do. And I can tell it's so genuine. It fuels you.
SCOTT: Well, thank you. You know, and I love what you've done. I'll never forget the day that we were working together and you called me over to your desk and I sat down and you were telling me, you know, about this business that you wanted
to start and that you were going to leave the job and all this. And I was just, I was so elated for you. And every time I get an email or I see a post of yours, I just smile because this is something that you created from nothing. You put your determination into it. You said, this is what I'm going to take control of in my life. And I'm going to be helping other people while I do it. And I absolutely love that. And I love it as much today as I did the moment you told me.
KATIE: That's so sweet of you. And it's honestly a face first, right? Like ditto.
And same for you because that's what you're doing all the time too. You know, you're always just determined making things happen. And I'm just very impressed by your, I don't know, you probably have blocks in your way, but from looking on the outside in and seeing all the stuff that you always create, I'm just like how he just, he's just ignoring anything that could get in the way and just
like, I'm doing it anyway. And I think that's just very cool.
SCOTT: The only block that I really have is just time, you know, having enough time in a day to get everything. Because I will work until my eyes will not stay open. And I will literally have to hold my eye open to shut off the computer and get to bed. So I don't typically suffer from like creative blocks or anything like that. It's never really been an issue for me. So I don't have to worry about those kinds of things. My biggest issue is more just schedule and time and things like that. But I added it up the other day, and I don't know if this is a good idea or not. But so I have nine books, 31 albums, 723 podcasts that I've done. And then one album I've recorded as the recording drummer for my band that's based on a Montreal. And we're starting to talk about doing our next album. And I just look back at it and I go, holy crap, that's a lot of stuff.
But everything happened one at a time, you know, it's like how many meals have you eaten? How many times have you washed your hair? Like you don't think about adding that up. So it sounds like a lot and maybe it is. But for me, it's just like it's just happened in such a just natural progression that yeah, what do you think about it? And then you know, all the guest episodes like this one that I've done, I haven't even counted.
KATIE: Yeah, if you actually put down the time on that, and that's just what was created. If you even like added up just what exists now, but the amount of time that you spend on all that is probably better to just not know.
SCOTT: Yeah, I definitely don't, you know, like I've met some of my musical heroes. And I'll say to them, like, I have spent countless I don't even want to know how many hours I've spent listening to your writing or performance and whatever. And then I'll like, I'll end the conversation with them. And I'll start thinking about it going, how much have I actually actually like a year
of time listening to them? And it's just crazy when you really think about but it's also I mean, it's good to analyze how we spend our time to an extent.
Because for people who say they don't have time, do you? Right?
KATIE: Yeah, this is very true. A story for another day. But once I had a kid, I was like, oh, that's what time looks like. It's so different than I thought. I used to have endless time, right? But then I would waste a lot of time too, because I was only accountable to myself. But once I had a kid, I got to drop him off at daycare, and then I pick him up. And then suddenly I'm on mom duty.
And so my hours for work are so limited. And I've still I'm trying to understand that I can't actually don't really have the space to go back to work after the day is done. And that's been something I'm still I mean, my kids two and a half now and I'm still trying to figure out time.
SCOTT: Yeah, it is a wild thing. The lack of physical energy because so much of that has to be dedicated to your child. So there's that. But then there's the emotional side of that too, because your brain capacity is also diminished
during those times, because you're having to use that on your child, which thank you for doing that. I mean, thanks for being a good parent. But oh, yeah, but it's it does you have to you get 100%. And if 60% of that now goes to your child, that leaves 40% for everything else. Because before, yeah, maybe 20% that went to everything else, and 80% to work on being a writer or helping writers.
So those like those kind of life changes have a huge impact.
KATIE: Huge.
SCOTT: And then you just got to figure out, okay, what do I have to do different?
KATIE: And how do I, how do I be more strategic with my time? What really matters to me? And that that is again, that is something for a whole other episode, right? But I'm so glad that you are, you have found what you love to do, and that you're not limiting yourself to one way of doing something one way of being a creative person. I love that you are creative in so many aspects.
And even in even if you were just to focus on just your music, you're doing different things with it, too. You're constantly doing, you know, using different modalities.
SCOTT: And there's, and there's different things, I mean, sometimes I write orchestral music, and sometimes I write horror music, and then I have my relaxation series. And then I might do a film score where you're called on to do everything. So even even within just music alone, there's a lot of variety.
But that's also, let's say, okay, so the Universal Court was considered a spy thriller, but I also was working on a horror novel, you know, so that so even within books, if you're if you find you're getting stuck on something, maybe just even do some writing exercises, or write a five page horror story or something, you know, whatever, something really different, you think, and I think every once in a while, we should just do something completely out
of our norm, and challenge ourselves. Because if you're just doing what's comfortable and what you know, you're not really growing very much, you're going to grow a little bit just from the knowledge that you pick up from one project.
But you really, if you're going to be an actor, be a director. If you're going to write spy thrillers, write a horror novel, you know, just do something
that really pushes you to expand in a way that you're not going to if you just keep doing what you're doing.
KATIE: Yeah, I love that. That is a great way to end this because I am all about author growth, writing growth, like, you know, how do you become the best you can be, and you're always going to be doing that, right? Like, you know, and maybe it sounds scary, like, oh, I'm never gonna reach the best of the best.
But it's like, but that's kind of the fun part is that you always especially with writing, you get to see it in literally in front of you. Wow, look at the growth of all that I've done and written and the way I'm better, I'm able to tell stories. And I'm just constantly developing. And it's, it's very, very cool.
But you do have to like, let yourself do it. You got to let yourself grow and be okay with that. And hey, that's part of the process. I'm always going to get better. I'm always going to learn something different. And yeah, if I look back at the, like you said, if you looked back at the screenplays, you know, the very first versions, you probably would just cringe and just like never want to look at it. You know, you would just like read two words and be like, I'm out.
SCOTT: And it's, it's funny, because I've been meaning to go back and read the original, like the very first one, just just because I'm curious, I don't even remember how it ended. And I'm curious to like, go back and see how much substance there was, how much connection there really was, as opposed to how much I thought there was. That was pretty new at writing, too. I had written only one other feature film screenplay. Okay, completely. That was a sci fi.
And so this was a new format, you know, like working with actually like screenwriting formats and things like that. So it was, again, a different approach to writing. So I think it maybe influenced how I wrote the story, even just because I had to format it differently.
KATIE: Yeah, oh, yeah. I'm that is something that it would be cool to learn one day. But like, I also know there's so much, there's so many barriers that my mind would create to be like, Oh, well, you have to format this way that I would just not be able to let myself express writing in that way. But that's very cool that you have experienced so many different things and figured out new methods of putting stories and your work out there.
SCOTT: Yeah, well, thank you. Thanks for interviewing me. You are a really good interviewer, by the way.
KATIE: That is nice to hear. But when you interviewed me on your podcast, it was really, really great. And I could just tell you done it so many times, you were so great at interviewing. So I just wanted to be like a fraction of what you were.
SCOTT: Oh, you're great. Don't you worry. It's easier with people, you know, you know, people that have a familiarity, but I've gotten to the point now where I a lot of times I meet the person when I interview them, like they come on the zoom call. And this is the first time I meeting I'm like, Okay, I don't really have anything written down except the main thing you're here to talk about. So let's just have a conversation. Let's just talk. Let's just do it. Let's just see where it goes, which is all that we did here today.
KATIE: So on that note, to end things, I do want to say, Okay, so Scott, you have 100 million things that you have out in the world. So why don't you share a few of those? SSo there's the the original Becoming an Indie Film Composer book.
There is the What Happened in Vegas series, there's three of those.
SCOTT: Yes, there is the three Universal Court books. And then the two, well, I guess I'm just calling them cloud porn books.
KATIE: Which I which I had to buy.
SCOTT: By the way, I didn't use the letter O I had to use an asterisk because Amazon would have had an issue. They flag it. Okay, they would have Yeah, so I just had to be a little creative there. But hashtag cloud porn, like if you go on Instagram, that is a huge, huge number. Which is why I thought of that for the title. Yeah, that in my friend, my friend Gabrielle Stone. She had a book called Eat, Pray hashtag FML. She did the FML because a it would be better for marketing, but because she couldn't actually spell that out and get that release on Amazon and her book. I mean, both of her books now are number one bestseller.
She's got her own podcast and will try she's changing people's lives. She's just a lovely person. But anyway, so I got that I've got my album that I'm while I'm remixing and remastering and making a deluxe version. That one's called the forgotten puppet show.
KATIE: And I like that name. That's great.
SCOTT: It was it was based on a song I wrote years ago, and just decided to turn it into turn into a song and I was going to do a concept album. But I thought now I don't really I've done a few concept albums, which I love doing, but at the time I was not up for it. So I but I thought it was a good album title.
And yeah, I made an amazing picture for that one. And then let's see. So I've got the three podcasts, I've got the haskincast podcast. I do a lot of album reviews. And I do a lot of interviews with different people all over entertainment from people that do costuming and laundry to people who are, you know, the lead actors or you know, the singers and out of bands. And then URiah Heep the magician's podcast where I reviewed every single song Uriah Heep ever recorded, which was a lot of them. And one live one and I interviewed everyone in the band, and some people that were previously in the band. And that is, like I said, pretty much done that will run until I think the first week of June is when the last episode hits. Okay, they'll be there forever for people to enjoy.
And then the third podcast, I really feel like I'm talking a lot right now.
KATIE: You've got a lot that you do.
SCOTT: This is the third one is the Aerosmith. Yeah, backtracks Aerosmith revisited where we're working on creating the ultimate live tape. It's greatest hits tape of songs that were released, and then deep tracks tape. And then for the fourth side, we each get to save three songs that didn't make it on to the other ones that we thought were worthy. So it's a really interesting combination.
And then my band era patches, we have an album out. And that's on my website, you can find it there. It's a real honor to play with these guys. We had Derek from Dream Theater guested on keyboards on one of the songs on our last album on the album before that before I was in the band, they worked with Don airy from
Deep Purple. Our keyboard player is David Stone, who played with Rainbow. And these are really amazing, amazing musicians, Jerry, our band leader and guitar player lives up in Montreal. He'll write the guitar track, and then he'll send it to me to record the drums. And then it goes on to the other musicians.
And there's kind of a weird way of doing things.
KATIE: Modern. Yeah, yeah. So cool that you can, that's really neat. That's a way that you can do music now.
SCOTT: It is. So all of that can be found on my website. It's scotthaskin.com.
It's probably the easiest place. Nice headers for if you want music, books, podcasts.
KATIE: You made it very easy. I have it in front of you. And I'm like, yeah, it's very just like, you can find what you're looking for, which is so nice. And no one has time to search for stuff, right? So I love I mean, I'm like, Oh, even my website is does is not this easy to make sense of.
SCOTT: So your website is nice to navigate, though. And it's very pleasant to look at. Like, it's got a really warm, inviting way about it. Yeah, yeah.
It's what it's what you want. Yeah.
KATIE: Well, thank you. But okay, great. So I will put all of those links in the show notes. This has been so fun. And I can't wait to check out your CloudPorn book. The next one.
SCOTT: It was a delight talking to you.
KATIE: I think you shared so many great nuggets for any writer, truly. And I love that you have just experienced in so many different places, nonfiction writing, fiction writing, you've written screenplays, you have the music, I mean, a podcast like you've you're in at all.
SCOTT: I just can't draw.
KATIE: I was gonna say like, where's your pain?
SCOTT: Yeah, no, I tried when I was a kid. I love drawing and painting. And I would be the kid that had his his palette and the fan brush out on Sunday morning, Bob Ross would come on and he would paint this beautiful tropical scene and I'm painting stick figures, you know, I never had a talent for it.
I was fun for a while. But graphic arts is not my it's not my forte at all.
Yeah, I'll stick to audio and print. Use the words to create what you want people to visualize themselves, right? And use that to do so.
KATIE: Yeah, exactly. That's great. Well, it was really, really fun to have you.
Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to everything you do next, everything you're currently doing and continue to do.
SCOTT: Thank you. Same here. I'm loving following your career. And I just watching it grow from day one has just been such an amazing experience. I admire you for everything that you're doing.
KATIE: That is very nice to hear. It is fun to have someone on who knows me outside of this too. You know, we that's how we knew each other first is regular life. But it's so cool to have our world, you know, blend now.
SCOTT: Thank you so much, Katie.
KATIE: Thank you.
