Jake Brown is a music biographer and award-winning author. He has written over 50 books. Jake has written biographies on bands from AC/CD and Heart to rappers like Tupac and R&B singers like Prince. 

His latest project is a streaming TV project called About The Authors TV, where he takes his experience and interviews some of these musicians and artists. 

What he has learned

Jake has defined himself as an instrumentalist of seven instruments since he was five years old. He grew up a musician and PR. Then he started working for record labels in Los Angeles. And from there he got into book writing. He has always been a music kid so to work with something he was already passionate about was a great opportunity he couldn’t miss. 

He started the process of writing Tupac Shakur and the studio book with his state with Afeni Shakur, and what he learned through that process was that there are templates that can be applied to almost any band across any genre. And if you as an author find a way to do so, do it. If you find a niche as an author jump on it quickly and write and publish as much as you can. 

Try to get published by a “real” publisher and not just publish yourself. If you’re starting you can check some forums where publishers may go through contests. If you really want to make it big you need to find a publisher that likes your idea and put money into it, market it, sell it, make a profit from it, and come back and ask you to do another one. 

Back when he was starting, Jake says he pretty much took anything that was thrown at him, he did Jasmine St. Claire who was an adult star in the nineties.

Don't do it just for the money

In 2004 he did his second published book and it was about R. Kelly. He admits that he only did it because he needed the money. Writing about R. Kelly was not easy for Jake and he was even asked to change some of the things in the introduction, changes that were demanded in order to water down the version Jake had written. But Jake needed the book to sell so when the situation wasn’t the same as for the previous book so when it came out he distanced himself from it. 

About building a writing career

Jake talks about how you must take chances when building your writing career, especially in the music industry. It is one of the toughest businesses to get into. But in the end, the opportunity that is actually life-changing will come and open many doors for you. In your career as an author you may not always do things the best way or maybe pick the wrong client but regardless the opportunity presented and previous experience will be key for you to make the right decisions and establish yourself as a prolific music author. 

About The Authors TV

Jake has been filming a new television show all year, you can find more about it on his Youtube channel, you can also find the show on Authors TV where he has taken his experience interviewing some of the most popular. In this show, Jake applies his creative process to interview his guests.

Jake decided to pursue having his own show as another creative outlet aside from the exhausting business of writing biographies. While writing is something he enjoys, he doesn’t want to spend his retirement writing and burning out. 

He has already shot eight of the ten seasons of the show. "I think we have 34 Pulitzer prize winners because I aimed high as I did with the music business." The show is available on Amazon and Hulu and will be available in Britain.

Mark closes the podcast talking about the creativity podcast isn’t just about philosophy. These are the creative and motivational stories of people and their journey to success through their creativity. If you want to read more about Jake Brown, go to http://www.jakebrownbooks.com/

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ROUGH AUTO TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back everyone to unlocking your world of creativity. I'm mark Stenson. This is the podcast where we talk to creative artists and practitioners, literally all over the world about their creative process. What inspires them, how they organize their ideas and how they get the confidence and gain the connections to launch their work out into the world. And we're just so happy today to have, as our guest, Jake brown music biographer award-winning author, he's created 50 books. I think it's 51 now, but who's counting 54. Cause every time I looked there's a new book.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, you know, what's interesting is that, um, some of the, you wouldn't call them iterations I guess, and publishing lingo, but, uh, I've had the privilege of working for, I mean, at this point it's probably upwards of 20 publishers around the world between the ones that I've written for in the states and then overseas. And one thing that I decided early on to do, and I would recommend this to authors too. If anyone is listening, uh, who is, or might be in your show in generally, who's got a book they want to put out sometimes because of it's a us language market. So like Australia, Canada, um, United Kingdom, north America, and, and beyond you can go to a Canadian publishers and example heart in the studio, which I wrote with Anna Nancy Wilson, uh, years ago, 15 years ago, um, Tori Amos in the studio, Rick Ruben in the studio, that's all by a Canadian publisher, ECW, well that Rick Rubin book, every year I get a car payment.

It's not a ton of money, but it's enough. And then just, uh, this last it's really weird during COVID because everyone was home and content demand went up. So I started getting approached by publishers from other countries that I hadn't either published or had been many years wanting to update these books. So Rick Rubin only ran through 2009. I'm now presently, um, writing a 11 year, 12 year update to 2021 for that book for Germany, for a German publisher. I'd never, and then of course the logic would be that ECW is going to take it and add that to their paperback. So that it's, so that's an example of a book that I'm fortunate because when you pick targets to work with, or write about, you have to keep in mind things like whether you want to, or it doesn't sound romanticized or anything, but the commerciality of the market of it has got to be there because the publisher is only going to want it.

If they know there's a base to sell it to that, you don't have to create from scratch. So anyway, Rick Rubin is unique because he's a record producer, but I have the only book on him. So I've been fortunate too, because I've gotten lucky. Um, so that was, so that was one example, but like in, and then, so I targeted Canada for them, but I've also got through for publishers in England. The, let me kill book, came out through John Blake. Um, the, uh, ACDC and iron maiden in the studio came out through John Blake. Um, cherry red did Tom waits in the studio, uh, there's others. So when you get to, and then you, you know, with sub rights, so what happens is I think it's 50, but then I get an update from some publisher that, Hey, the, you know, and it's cool because these are kids who are now growing up, who are discovering these catalogs through streaming and are then getting the opportunity.

Not because of me at all. I'm saying the opportunity to have a Chronicle chronological, um, deconstruction, I suppose, of how all those records are made. And if they have an interest in going into sound engineering, I was really blown away by this. I did, uh, the, the 50th book, uh, last summer we did as a huge zoom, uh, media thing. It was all kinds of different things. I'd never heard of zoom, never used it, but then of course it changed my life in so many people's, but what's happened is when I talk to people on zoom who were like, oh yeah, I had, uh, recorded in this studio and we were trying. And the one story that I got directly was from Chris Stapleton's producer, Dave Cobb, who of course has reinvented all country here in Nashville. When I approached him in 2018, after my dog candy died and I needed a project to keep me from going nuts, uh, sorry, kind of a picture of them.

Uh, I started contacting, I had done behind the boards one and two years earlier, which is rock producers. And I sorta thought, wouldn't it be interesting to finally get this third one done with the Nashville producers? Cause I had just been procrastinating on it cause I write three or four books a year traditionally and it gets exhausting and you can't let it, but then you get a good idea and you have to work on it through the context side, which is totally separate from writing. But I got in touch with Dave Cobb and they said yes, really quick. And when I talked to him and found out why it's because in his studio at RCA B, um, where we all put together and I was a small fish in a very big pond, a much bigger people that were all residents on music row tenants in 2014, 15, when they were first going to tear down RCA to build one of these condos, uh, Ben folds had the space and put a million dollars into it before that.

So he was like, look, this is my studio. Then Dave cop took it over. But because they've continued to make hit records out of there. So many hit records, Grammy winning albums of every genre. Um, they haven't been able to touch it. It's now got preservation status and everything, but on his shelf as a reference guide for drum sounds is recruiting in the studio. And no matter where you go around Nashville and partly, this is because I sacrificed the promos to make sure they are in the studio lounges of a lot of these places, but you can find these books and, and anybody could have done these interviews. I was lucky that I got to do them mostly for the first time with a lot of these people in, uh, an actual anthology setting and to be clear and things like that. You're like behind the boards, behind the woods, Nashville, you get the story of the country, producer, how they were when they were a baby, what kind of music they were hearing in their mother's womb all the way through, literally through what they grew up on, what their trials and tribulations getting to town and how they started out a session and wound up having more of an acumen for producing and learn from the best by playing for them.

And then, and, and, you know, these guys were also the writers, but it also showed me that to come to Nashville is different than to go to LA or to go to New York. And there was a story in and of itself, but each of these chapters in this book, and there's 34 of them in this behind the boards, Nashville, it's also been turned into a two volume audio book.

Yeah, yeah. I definitely wanted to talk about that, but in your describing, and this is, you know, when for listeners look, Jake brown is written from a ACDC at heart, the editorial, the most, you mentioned Tom waits to rappers like Tupac and, uh, R and B like prince, you know, all of these, but you're describing some common thread a little bit anyway, of a creative process. That metamorphosize is from the idea, you know, or their style into the work. What have you learned about from writing about all these things?

Oh my God, you know what happened? I learned I've learned what I can't do. And I mean, I'm an, I'm an instrumentalist of seven instruments by years since I was five. I mean, I grew up a musician and a, and a and a PR and then started out working for record labels in Los Angeles. And just by happenstance, got into book writing, but I wanted to do it if I had to do it. Cause I've always been a music writing kid, you know what I mean? I'm, I'm not trained, it's all by ear, but it was like, if you're going to do this, you need to take it on from the standpoint of like my in the studio series to answer your question, which is trademark now proudly. And in 15 years in counting, um, I had dumb luck, no one had that in the studio.

I was like, I was this crazy and no one had it. And so I immediately started the process of writing that Tupac Shakur and the studio book with his estate with Afeni Shakur. And, um, what I learned through that, because that was the first in the studio book was, there are many more of these and this template can be applied to almost any band across any genre. And if you find a way as an author to do that, be if you're a history author or it could be anything romance or paranormal, whatever fantasy, true crime, thriller mystery, if you find a niche as an author, jump into it, hit fast forward on the gas and publish as much as you can. And I don't mean publish yourself. There's a difference. I'm sorry to just be factual about it. You're either published by a real publisher or you're not.

Now that doesn't mean that when you're starting out, you can't go to some of these great forums through which a fan fanfiction is an example where you like an author and you can write an original variation of their story. And then a publisher might see that there's all sorts of contests and there's all kinds of online things. Critique peer groups. There's lots of ways for you to start, but if you're really going to get published and then keep getting published, you have to first find a publisher. They have to like your idea. They have to be able to put the money into it, market it, sell it and make a profit from the comeback to you and say, we want to do another one. When you get another one, you have to go, okay, well, who am I gonna write about now? Well, I had the fortune, um, because I also took anything that was thrown at me when I was first working.

So I did Jasmine St. Claire. Who's a adult star from the nineties, from who doesn't quite remember or want to admit to remembering her, um, through her who she was a rock and roll type porn star. She also was friends with a lot of these guys. I got to interview like lending, let me call my sister. And I thought, man, what a great idea would be to do Motorhead in the studio book. And I cold called him on the side of a highway when my car broke down in going to Chicago. And I said, I had to wait on it like a tow truck. And I thought, I'm going to just call him. And I called him and I said, Hey, let me, this is, uh, you know, we met through this and I wrote this other series and could I send you a copy of the book?

And he said, yeah, I FedEx made out the FedEx form in the car and dropped it off at the next stop. And then on the way back, I got him back on the phone and I said, Hey, did you get the book, this and that? And he said, yeah, let's do it. Well, that was another, I mean, I I'm one of three, uh, the privilege of being one of three authors, that's gotten to write books with Lemmy and that book was wild because we were literally like, we came up with the cover together. He texted he's like, texted me. I got it. You know, 1130 at night, we're pig with the headphones and the sunglasses on. And his people gave me exclusive use of the war pig and our designer put together the cover with the, I mean, it was really interactive. But what I learned from that too, was, um, you know, that book got published by John Blake and that exposed me to a British reading audience really early in my career.

So I mean really early is to say seven or eight years then. But my so, but the first books I wrote were wrapped books should night, which is still a lure. A book of it is inextricably tied me to that west coast story because there's no one else has done a book on show night. And I got lucky in that fact, now I'm writing with corrupt. It was another west coast Dogpound, you know, and, and to hear from him. And, and when they did the death row Chronicles, 18 years later, I was the biographer of record and there for the first time as me and shook juxtaposed against each other and back and forth, and he's secretly being interviewed from LA county jail. So if you pick really cool projects that you think are cool, and you can convince someone else that they're cool getting

A publisher retracted into it, then

They, yeah, because then because then it connects you with the reading audience of the actual listeners to these people. So you're not even going to like fans. Can I be S fans you're going to, you're going to the real source. And that's important in distinction because a lot of times authors don't think like that when they're starting out, they just think, oh, I'm going to find a publisher and they're going to find the audience. And then we'll together. You know, they'll want to read more of my books. It does not. And especially 20 years later in today's world, um, I'm 45. And I'm just as, I mean, the social media pages that I maintain four different book projects. I can't stand doing it personally, but like on Twitter, you'll see mine go dormant performance. So there's a new one, but on like the YouTube channel for the upcoming show, I'll tell you about that. The streaming television show I've been filming all, all year, we post every week, two or three new clips from these many, many interviews. So you can just, but so you have got, you still got to fuel the fire. You have to think about the marketing. Yeah. If you find a fan base or people that are willing to that are fans of a band, well, they, you know, they can read it. Anyone can run it an authorized biography. I've written them. I okay. Well, I

Was going to ask you Jake, the difference between the sort of authorized collaborative, I'm working with the artist versus, Hey, I want to write about this person because I think either I like them or I'm going to expose something, whichever it is. Um,

I've never done one of those and I've turned down a lot of them. Um, I did a book in 2004, 2003. It was my second published book. It was on R Kelly. I did it because I needed the money. And because the publisher that puts shook night came back to me and they said, we want a book on R Kelly, do you want to write it? And I said, well, I think R Kelly is a child molester and a scumbag. And I said that then. And in fact, my book, which then Doubleday picked up in their book club thing, which was a big deal for a second book out author demanded that I write a new introduction that watered down at the time, his whole thing, I was like, you know, I still feel comfortable with this, but they sold me. They said, this guy is beloved in the African-American community.

He, the women that, the situation there it's different. You have to understand that you got to write around it. You know, we need to sell this. And so when it came out, um, I just stayed over a thousand yards away from it. But for many years after that, I would get approached by, um, cause, see if you're, if you're lucky too, if you're an author and your books are selling and they see, you can write these kinds of books and I'm, no, this is not just me. This is an industry-wide thing. Publishers are often looking for authors that are young and new, but that can do this to write this trash stuff like you're talking about. No one else wants to. So it's not that I dissuade people from doing it, but I really urge them kids that grew up. Luckily reading my stuff that write me, asked me about it.

I say, you know, pick the stuff really carefully that, cause it might be like a lady, God, that book, I did a lady Gaga book. I didn't know anything about her at the time. And it was a payday and it was like 10 years ago and I needed the money. So I took it. Um, and I wrote a really, I wrote as much as I could without any sensationalism. And that's hard to do with someone like her because she invites that as part of her image. Now that's different now with the Oscar and everything. But to answer that question, um, it's, you know, you're

Also describing though, I mean, you you've across all these genres. This is not because you just liked this John Ray or that you just liked this artist. You're, you're writing a music biography.

What will change is yeah. What changed about it was very early on the way I wrote them and I don't take, I, you know, I don't know. I I'm very, I'm very reticent to take credit for anything because everything had been done already. But one thing that I have been proud of in my catalog, and I think it's one of the reasons I've kept working at a place where I was able to work with bigger groups, um, that led me to like Joe Satriani or led me to heart or led me to lend me. Well, let me would have been either way, but led me to some of these later acts, is that everything's on the record. There's no, I've never once in any book I've ever done had an unauthorized source. And I think it's almost toxic now to have that, um, in your books, because there's such an internet based for that, you know, it, it almost, it almost groups you in like a national Enquirer type of author, but what, what was important was the end, the studio series, which is a breakthrough after four years of writing these hip hop books.

And I love Tony rose and Amber's books. He gave me my start and I think in everyday for it, um, but the, in the studio books was a huge breakthrough because what it did is it validated me to go out and talk directly to the engineers who nobody was talking to because a crap about Tom waits, his 1970s asylum catalog. And that's a shame because it's the best part of this catalog. It's the part that started everything. It, it, it revolutionized the genre of music. It didn't exist before him and bones. How is the man who made that happen? And I tracked down bones Howe and left him a voicemail. Cause back then, and this is other thing you have to be as a, as a biographer, you have to be a researcher of like a skip tracer almost because back then, who is.com. When someone registered a.com address, they had to put a host.

Um, it was before GoDaddy did it all and anonymized. So you could, I mean, so the first book series that actually started that with studio focuses called behind the boards in 2003. And I was talking to these guys that I grew up listening to. And I was, and I know every note of their catalog by almost any instrument that was on it, not to their level of performing, but because I play a lot of them, so I could ask them questions and I've been in studios for a few years already. So they were like, okay, so you actually want to know about like how many feet away the mic. And this is not, like I said, this is not something that hadn't been done, but in books, it really hadn't been done till in the studio where we're the microcosms of every sound were, were analyzed.

Yeah. You could find out like, dude, how did you get Bob rock? I wanted to know how he got that cannon, you know, title drum sound for kickstart and feel good and all the songs. And he was like, well, I was recording at a place called little mountain and Bob clear mountain, who's one of the most legendary mastering engineers in the world own that studio. So he built out a big, like huge back bay where the buses loaded equipment in. And then normally you went into this other and record. They just stayed out there. Well, that's fascinating. And then to hear them, they do all the, really the work of filling in the, well, I set it to five DB below this and I did that. But another thing that it really helped me appreciate was the difference between producing from the standpoint of someone.

And there were many of them and I've interviewed most of them. And I respect them immensely, who kind of kinda don't really know how to work the board. And then those engineers who then went on to become producers who started out really doing the recording. Um, and I could point you to Mike clink or, uh, really dear for a lot of years from, uh, someone I knew, well, Mike Frazier, um, who produces ACDC now, when I knew him, he was sort of still engineering them, but then they gave him his first producer when I started interviewing him across many books. But, um, these guys really were the ones doing the, you know, the setup. And then I was like, well, tell about that because you engineered that record, really? You co-produced, it, you seeking a credit for it and be like, let's talk about it. So what I really tried to do is to go into every corner of the recording studio so that if you were reading it, you could listen to it.

You could read along and there's narrative intro and pro stuff, but it really, you get the, you get the producers, you get the engineers and then it expanded into, let's just try to get the bands. And when Hart came along, I actually did that book in reverse. I went and I interviewed everybody else first. So I had all of my, I was basically going to them saying, I'm putting this out either way, but I'd like to have you included. And Howard Leese gave me Ann Wilson's email. And I, and I knew that that was a really tricky thing. This is 2007. And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to email her and I'll just say, Hey, I've got all these everyone else that's ever worked with. You has already talked to me and all the producers, all the band members, everybody, I would love to be able to get you and Anne you and Nancy to properly connotate this book and give a context and give me your, and I was shocked the next day when their manager called and rather than telling me they were going to Sue me or anything else.

So you take chances when you're, when you're building a writing career, especially in the music business. Cause it's the toughest business to get one thing in, let alone a bunch. And so anyway, they gave me interviews and I was floored by it. And then it took me another year to sell it. I sold it the day before my grandfather died, uh, to, um, ECW press. And I had to, well, I, I sold a couple of months, but I finished it the day before I had to finish at hand in and then drive overnight to see him in the hospital. And I got to tell them, and it was really cool, but that book was life-changing for me. I mean, that was a career changing book, but, but it also opened so many doors that you only get to walk through once. And then in other words, so if you walk through it and you do it half-ass or you have the wrong client, which I've got a folder called probably won't happen projects. And I won't name any of them because I can assume, but you have to guys you've heard in classic rock radio, I have done sort of these preliminary, maybe let's do a couple of sample interviews and see where it goes. And in some cases it was too litigious to turn it into a book, but then,

Well, you're also describing Jake, this kind of sense around, and I think to talk about their craftsmanship is great. I want to talk about yours for a little bit too. And that is this audio book that you're doing, or the audio book on behind the boards that I've got. Yeah, exactly. It's been called like a synchronized experience though. You've got the interview, you've got the sample. You get the sound. That's the audio. I mean, the whole thing is a connected creative experience. Isn't it?

It, it, it, it, it can be, yeah. I didn't start writing audio or reading audio books until Blackstone approached me and asked me if I would do it and read them myself versus going and assigning them out to somebody else. And the first two we did, one's called doctors a rhythm, which is a hip hop anthology. And I took all the producers in there and their, every everyone's in there, uh, Johnny J Tupac's producer from all the death row stuff to Teddy Riley to easy Moby to, um, got Pete rock, Eric B um, legends, uh, Kanye has guy Mike Dean, of course. Um, boy, wonder from Drake. So it covers the ulcer M and M name them in there, in there. That was an interesting learning experience because I read my narrative parts and then we archive from the original interviews directly from the voices of the producers.

You then would hear them talk. Instead of me read that proved to be extremely arduous to produce because I'm already, I have a catalog of 250 songs as a songwriter, and I'm, I've make records under a lot of names on the Spotify that are all me playing and singing or performing or anything, but they had the, like the national sons. But so I knew my way around the studio. Well enough to know what a hell this is going to be. And it was, we got it done. Then we did one with the drummers for beyond the beats, which came out in 2018. And that got a really cool reception as far as USA today, did a nice cover story on it. Uh, Tommy Lee did a really nice blast on his social media. I've known him for years through other books and some of the other druthers, I met these drummers doing Kenny Aronoff memoir.

And I just said, Hey, man, I got this idea. Would you guys be interested in, see, that's the other thing, when you're writing to talk about process, you have got to seize the moment while you're talking. These people, Billy Corgan. I interviewed for that book. I was writing, uh, for tape op at the time, which is a recording magazine sort of recording magazine. And I was just taking all behind the boards interviews and giving them to them and repackaging it. But I said to them, Hey, I have an opportunity here, but this is before the arena reunion. So I get to catch these guys when they're, I said, you know, I'm kind of getting along pretty good with Billy Corgan and we're talking about it in the studio book, but I don't think it's going to happen because he's doing his own book, but he is willing to give me a really extensive interview.

And in the studio book, essentially in tape op magazine, well, that, that gave me access to Jimmy Chamberlin. There goes another. So when you get these interviews with people like meeting Lemmy through Jasmine, it's also networking to talk about process. It really is. You have to go, okay, I have this other idea. Is there a chance you'd consider talking to me? Um, and, and when they say yes, then you have to be really well-researched. And that's another thing that, um, rock and roll kind of, you know, vibe books and everything seemed like, yeah, I wrote it even songwriters that, that 20 seconds or 30 seconds that they get the rough idea, that then becomes a song there's another hundred that never, yeah, but it's different with books. You can't have a hundred book ideas because they're not a minute long. They're 200 pages long. So, so anyway, and sometimes the research Stephen get ready to write them can be that.

And then you don't. So I tried throughout my catalog building up to where I'm going with the audio books after heart, after Motorhead, I had this incredible opportunity and that came through, sitting up until three in the morning, emailing directly or through the managers, artists saying, Hey, I have this idea in the studio book. I think your catalog would be great. I don't just do mass blanket, but I reached out to Joe Satriani, who I, everyone knows of our generation is the best-selling instrumental guitar player of all time and incredibly other, not even Halen Steve, by who he was. Of course his instructor, Joe was an instructor to Kurt Hammond. I thought this book could be like an in the studio book. And the next morning, uh, I got a call from, or an email from Nick. Brigden his manager saying, Joe wants to talk to you at 11 o'clock today.

You have three minutes when he gets on the phone to give an elevator speech for this book. And sure enough, when I got on the phone with him, he said, tell me exactly what this book is, what you envision with this book being about how you figure we'd write it. And, and, you know, and in three minutes later, we were, we were rocking and rolling. He said, I said, I said, I just don't think you're a genius. As a guitar player has ever been analyzed a properly documented in a book. And I want to do that with you because I think it will help generations of people in the future when they're figuring out how the hell you played all this stuff here, right from the horse's mouth. And so why I emphasize that is that was a career changing book for me, even above heart, because that, you know, when you're a biographer, uh, or you're any kind of a book author, you're competing with an average of 2000 books a year that are released.

And maybe more than that now, because of all the eBooks back then, it was about, and within the music genre, I mean, you know, there was when that paperback mass market era was kind of around the early millennium, there was some real trash. And so you really had to, to get to a saturation level place, then you get that gig. Well, now you have the responsibility. It's like being a producer and getting the gig with Metallica. Well, now you got to go in there and produce it as Bob rock explained to me. And so I thought, man, what is the list I'm going to have together here? And we sat there and just put together, you know, I got to interview Glenn Johns, uh, out of that book. And, and I had already talked to Eddie Kramer and pretty much everybody else, but just to talk to Glen Johns, I didn't get to ask him about any other records, which sucked because normally I can turn an interview. Like the Corgan thing flood was one of those producers. And I was like, can I ask you just about a few other records? Cause I turned that he's in the next point in the board's book, it's,

You're bringing up something important. I think that say, look, I've done the preparation, I've done the research. But ultimately as other guests have told me, there is the three minute pitch, you know? I mean, literally, what do you got? Give it to me or I'm hanging up

Well. And here's the other thing that three minute pitch is a sort of, um, that's going to be what you're promoting a lot of the time too. And, and th this was the other thing with writing with Joe that was so important. It's talking about a process. We had a standing appointment every Friday. I had a digital recorder. I had my old fashioned. You could kill someone if you hit him over the head though, that dad gave me big, heavy tape recorder from the seventies with the thing. And I had a third one and I made three copies of every one of those interviews because I was so paranoid about losing them. Um, and, and through those interviews, I really, really only got to understand. And I spent two years in a really comprehensive box with Joe Satriani on, uh, and then we again teamed up in 2017 to expand his paperback and other two albums.

So I've known this gentleman for, for over, almost a decade now, which is to say professionally, I'm not, we're not personally, I haven't been to his house for dinner, but he, he was the nicest. I mean, he was not as accessible to me personally as other artists. And even if I was talking to him for two hours, cause he's such a scientist, when you're talking to him, he's getting into the explaining to you how he did the refer, you know, surfing with the alien or summer song. And you're just sitting there like, this is just incredible to get to listen to, well, how the heck am I going to take this? And so, you know, we, we, we, that book evolved from it in the studio book to them when I sold it to Benbella books. Um, and I agent I'm an agent at 38 of my 50 books myself.

You get to know these editors that buy these properties and you meet them at BES and you send them new stuff. And so there's a lot of networking behind the scenes to being successful author that's beyond the writing. But what I did do with Joe is I said, I kept encouraging him very quietly and I can't take total credit for this, but the project evolved beyond on the studio book. It turned into what, what, and I'm proud that I, he came up with the strange, beautiful music. I came up with a musical memoir because I, the publisher really to their credit Glen yet has put us in a position where he said, guys, we could have a, like a 10,000 run, hard cover. You know what I mean? Type of both the average music. Yeah. I did a book with a country rapper named big smile a couple of years ago. And if you've heard from these parts, he's a pioneer in that genre. We were lucky. We got Barnes and noble and you go in there and there's a couple of copies, but when I'm saturated on it, you walked in right on those front tables. I mean,

They really, what they expected

From us to be, you know, really deliver the goods. So there was a nuanced process of, of getting Joe to where he was comfortable talking about some of his personal background while respecting he's a very private guy. And I tried very hard to respect that because it was, he was just the nicest guy I think I've ever written with. I mean, I just, I can't say enough nice things about him. And when the book came out, I'm used to, my name's always on it. It's by so-and-so with me. You have to contractually, make sure you get that done as a piece of advice because I've had one publisher screw me on it. And I never wrote for them again, I almost sued them. Um, and I still get royalty checks on that book for 40% of the total, because I wrote the whole thing with the artists.

I won't mention because I think highly of him, but the publisher was a piece of garbage. So, uh, be careful of that too. But when Joe and I got to the point where we had this book, about two thirds of the way done, we were sitting there going, who else can we like? And then he went, well, you know, there was this guy named bongo, Bob from San Francisco that played percussion. Well, I hunted down bongo, but he would give me these assignments and almost something to prove. And then would come in. Once we sold the book, we had to do these methodical multi, but when that book came out, he wrote me a page and a half. Thank you. Well not thank you. But acknowledgement in the front of the book, credited me with coming to him with the idea. I've never had someone to give me the, I always get a thank you, but never it's maybe a sentence or two.

This was. And then when he went out and did his press tour, cause we released it with Sony with a box set. So you could listen to these songs, the albums, and read how they were made Hollywood reporter USA today. Rolling stone. I'm not, I'm just, I'm not variety places. I would never myself have expected to be. And this guy would go on, they've asked three, four questions. And he, so he was such a nice guy. So the other thing is to pick people, if you're going to spend two years writing a book with somebody, make sure that you either have a really temperament wise bedside manner. That's very patient and I've had that too, or that you're going to get really like get along with them, but don't mistake yourself for their friend. And I think that's really important because I've, I've, I've across country, rap, rock alternative. I've had the privilege of writing with pretty much every genre and in country, I write with all of the top songwriters in town here in my series and people that [inaudible], and I don't go, Hey, let's get that coffee sometime. And I'm as well-known, I don't mean this the wrong way, but in Nashville, fortunately in a country, my name has, has, is as known a value is there isn't any press setting. So it's not as though I'm going, Hey, I'm a nobody, but I just know better

At a professional level.

And that's the part that I'm least comfortable with, but you have to learn to be able to be comfortable getting in front of a camera and promoting your work. But the other thing is to let the star be the star. And that's the difference that I I've known a God, a lot of guys over the years and ladies that were writing in this genre, and there's not a lot of us, there's a small club and, and have that keep doing it a long time. And it's really because they're new. We know that their name is the big name and our name's the small name. And when you write the book, you don't have to be an kiss. But if you remember that relationship and that they could pick anyone to be in a room with Joel Selden, I just talked to you for the show.

We'll get to in the seventies, they did a ag Hagar's book. And at the same time, Sammy Hagar, I interviewed him for, for Sacha and his book. I asked him, I said, Hey, you know, your author is really a cool, a lot growing up, Joe, as a legendary music journalist from the bay area. And I said, I'm just curious, when you guys got together, how that worked? He said, well, I love reading his stuff. And I called him and said, you want to book? And we ironically now share the same agent, uh, me and Joel. So it was funny when we talked, because, but when you get to that point where you get, and you don't get them every year, you have to go out and look for them too, and you have to have multiple series. So all that led up to basically the national songwriter book series took off after that saturated.

Well, then I got to work with Merle Haggard and Freddie powers and Willie Nelson on spring of 83 life and times of Freddy powers, which is out now actually has a book soundtrack as well. And it's a 52 disc thing. And it has a, uh, all kinds of stuff. There's a movie coming up. We just finished the screenplay for last year. But to get all of those places, you have to like, remember your, the small fry in the room. And, and I think that's so important because when an author sees their name, if they dry, I never had a dream to be an author that I talked a lot of people who did, and they see that first book, their ego gets so big that it almost outshines the artists that they're trying to work with, you know? And, and, and that's, and I'm just say that because it's, it, it can happen really easily without you realizing it, because someone's really cool that you've always thought it's really cool.

It starts making you feel really cool somehow. Yeah. Cut it off immediately because it can, it can, you can, you it's in so many ways, all of that led up to, um, getting to a place in, in 2020 where I had hit 50 books and I was exhausted and I have early onset arthritis in my fingers, rheumatoid from my dad. And, and I can, I mean, my thumb is I think this joint is have hollow now. And, uh, so then you have to start thinking about things like hiring a transcriptionist. That's 20 bucks, extra an hour that I'm not putting in my pocket. And I write for a living. I pay a mortgage. I mean, I have a car payment. It's not a romantic job that people romanticize writing. It's a business. But I thought at that point w with the zoom thing that happened, and here, I'm talking to you, I was talking to WGN Chicago's morning show and this morning show and that one, and I was like, not like today's show, but just these markets.

And I'm like, Hey, cool. I'll talk to, you know, a million people in Austin, you know, that watch this TV channel. And I was like, we're doing all this from home. Everyone was having that realization, but I'd always wanted to do a show. Cause I would go to the Bea. I, you know, you do a, your book promotions or signings, and then you have this, this thousand dollars passionate publishers paid for, for you to walk the floor and not only pitch editors, your stuff, but also meet other authors. And I thought, man, there's not been, there's been all these pots. There's been not like yours. That's really cool. But let's be honest. I mean, the podcast generation that started about 10 years ago, it's not peaked, but those that are still doing it are doing it because they know like yourself what you're doing, but it's really something that can be done in theory, you know?

But I thought I could never have executed this concept because I had done TV things over the years too, but I'm very picky about them because I didn't want to be like the R Kelly sensation thing where they want it, not me, but him. They want you to salacious, salaciousness, talk about him, abusing young girls and all this stuff. And so I thought, man, I've always wanted to interview authors, but the big obstacles have been hiring the independent stringer camera crew, and then having to fly to the location, having to beg them to let me come into their house or meet them at some place

I have to pay them. There's a lot of logistics,

Logistical nightmares. You go to the BVAs and do it. You get 10 minutes. And I wanted to do a fundamental, like, uh, take the template from the books were in the anthologies like national songwriter. We break down not only the stories behind the songs, but we break down for half the chapter, the entire backstory and there's stuff that comes out in those interviews that relates directly to the later writing of hits. But because, and most of them agreed to do with me, or like beyond the beats, the rock drummers, I have 43 drummers between books two and three from topper Hayden and the class historical blink to, uh, MC five's drummer to Dino Donnelley. And every way you can name them, they're in there. And, and I, I probably was a hundred drummers in that series. So why, you know, Alan White, well, I want to hear what it's like sitting there next to John Lennon, uh, at breakfast, getting ready to do imagine. So anyway. Yeah. So to apply that concept to book authors. So

Just as we, as we turn the page to this, Jake, just let me set this up a little bit. That's good. And I'd say we have five or 10 minutes left. So just a time check here. But, um, our guest is Jake brown. He's a music biographer, but he's got a new project working. Now. He's putting together a streaming TV project called about the authors TV, where he's taken his experience and interviewing some of these musicians and artists. And now applying that to interview authors about their creative process about their techniques and their approach. So Jacob it's exhaustive, it's a list. I'll tell

You how that, how that happened and then how it took off. So I signed with a new agency last summer and I got tired of selling my own books and, and it, this I'm I'm, I'm in my mid forties. So I was like, I gotta, I gotta take some kind of thing retirement time, which not from this, but having an agent, who's going to take the 20%, but get me, you know, some bigger deals and go down the road. But I thought I also want to do a streaming television show. Cause I shot this thing for hearts, uh, breaking the band documentary in this little tiny studio in Berry hill. And I was like, these people, all wearing masks and welder masks. And I was like, this is insane. I wouldn't do this if you pay me. But if I just get to the London, the producers were going with me over zoom.

And I was like, it doesn't look like crap anymore because Skype look terrible. You couldn't use Skype for it. And because people got indoctrinated to the zoom culture through these teams, much more accustomed to it, but there are costs of doing and most these authors sitting at home at 4k GoPro sitting there to shoot there. So I was like, man, what if I reach out to just a few of the bestselling authors in the world? Not local, not regional. I only wanted to aim. And that's the thing, aim high. Don't aim middle aim high, because you may end up two thirds of the way up, but that's a step up. I thought Suman kid, you know, Scott Turow, uh, Lawrence block, a few legends. And I was like, let me just reach out to them and they'll tell me no. And I'll I'll know the, and instead just this list is an older Catherine culture.

Heather Graham, Sumo kid, uh, Karen slaughter, we just did, uh, last week. Um, these are all from season one. Um, God, Brad Meltzer, Neil Strauss, Steve Walton, who did the make movie? John Douglas. Who's the mind hunter profiler. I mean F Lee Bailey, who was one of the first people I reached out to wrote two of the best selling defense books of all time. He died a couple of weeks ago. We had his last televised interview. Um, so we just kept taking off Bernard Cornwell. I could go down this list, TC Boyle, I mean legendary names, Martin, new Gorda. Co-writes the bill, O'Reilly killing books. And I want to talk to bill, but I want to talk to Martin. So anyway, all these people were amazing. Lee generous with their time. And because I came in saying, look, I'm an author of 50 published books. I would be hosting the show.

So, and I have a set that I shoot against. It's like got bookshelves and it's a whole pro thing. We have district. We went to Amazon early and to Hulu through, see a lot of people think that everything is directly done through Amazon. It's not, most of it's independently produced the content providers that then go to distributors and then that's what you wind up and it might stream for two weeks and then you have to buy it. My rationale was, if you're a Sumo kid fan of Layla's secret life of bees, you're going to see it for the week. You're going to pay the 2 99 to download the episode. And here we'll hear you for the first two seasons come out in December, you get 52 episodes. If you were to buy the whole thing, it'd be 40 bucks, but you can stream it as well.

Um, and it's going to be out in Britain. Uh, there's going to be, uh, about the authors TV, Britain edition. It's just going to go on and on I've shot 10 seasons. Well, eight seasons of the 10 we're going to be. And if I went into the names coming up, it would just, we just got to get ranking. I mean, these are, these are like, I think we have 34 Pulitzer prize winners, um, that it does not, I only dropped those sort of statistics. So you understand the echelon of it. Cause I aimed like I did with the music business, but I applied it. So yeah, it's gonna be, it's going to be

Their encouragement. And so again, if somebody wants to hear that list and say, ah, dropping, that's not the point you're saying aim high.

And that these are the actual authors that I substantiate that claim with. And then that no one had about the authors TV. Like no one had national songwriter. I was like, are you stupid? Somebody out there? This is dumb luck. So that's what I mean, like in the studio, dumb luck behind the boards, dumb luck. And then I just happened to spend the money on the lawyer and trademark it. Uh, another cheap thing you can do. I come up with ideas sometimes. I don't know if they're going to work, but you get a certain proprietary protection with.com by the.com costs you 10 bucks. So if you're a, if you're an author and you want to write and in today's world, you have to be very entrepreneurial. You have to be able to be willing to spend money on a publicist, which is an extra five to seven, $8,000 that you that's going to hurt.

You're going to eat it, but you're going to get great press out of it because I joke like a publishers. They're wonderful. And I deal with a lot of them. But average publishers publicist is like a caseworker. They've got about 30 cases on their desk and they can only give so many record labels, same thing, they got 30 records. They got it. So if you're willing to put the money and invest in yourself, that's the other thing, man. Like when I get book advances, if I'm not paying bills, I'm putting in all right back in because it's the only way that you build out a catalog and then you get royalty checks off that catalog for years and years and years because you got 20. Uh, uh, and I've got, and I've also been published in 11 countries quite fortunately. So I'm able to get J Japan has been one of my name.

Um, I mean we just, I just got hired to do a Michael Jackson book in the studio, Michael Jackson and the studio up there. They just took, um, God, they just bought a bunch of stuff. Um, Mr. Uh, keyhole at the English agency, go, go, Mr. Hattori. Uh, but the point is, man, if you're going to do new things, if you're going to sustain a career processes important, you get those tools down, but you have to think about promotion networking. You have to think about, who's going to be reading your book. What they're going to be interested in. If they're going to be interested, pass the first few pages, put stuff later, don't give them everything at once. In other words, like you can open talking about a big hit and then flash back to childhood and they're going to have to wait 200 pages. It gets back to the hits because you want to hold their interest that whole time.

So hopefully the show will inspire aspiring authors. It also appeals to the fans. We talk about every book in depth, the creation of characters, the creation, storyline series, um, advice. There's a Bible of advice in there not to misuse the term. Um, but it's really designed to, to appeal to these kids who are not in a classroom right now, or a lecture hall, getting hearing from these people. And the fact that I was so honored, that, that the list just continues to grow. The threshold is you have to be a best seller, not of an Amazon list, but in New York times, or we wanted to keep a threshold there and have a few books out. But, um, yeah, it's, it's just, it's given me a new leg to my career that I'm grateful to have. And you have to reinvent yourself if you want to stay relevant.

That's the other really hardcore piece of advice. I'd hammer home. They don't all work. I've had a lot of things that I wrote off money. Okay. You can write it off. It's not like it's odd. Jerry ever really write those companies off. You don't know what a write off is, but no write off in the writing world means you put money into a project that doesn't get sold. You get to deduct it against your earnings for that year. So with the TV show, I probably got a couple of years where I'm not going to, you know, if I break even, I'll be lucky, but it's a new universe. I'm excited about it. Streaming is a great way for me to reach a lot more people that want to learn about how to write books and how the best that did it. You see, the other point is like, you're the host and I'm doing this, but it's about the people we're talking to. Absolutely.

And that's what that's, what is so fun. Exactly. Well, listeners, listeners, you have just had that full sense around experience. We've been talking about. You've been listening to Jake brown author music biographer, a host of a new series called about the authors. He writes. He writes about writing. He's an author. He talks to authors. It all comes around.

Can I give you one closing thing with plugs on the website, please, please go to just tv.com. You can go to a YouTube channel. You can check out the spring of 83 book.com for Freddy powers book, which also has Merle Haggard Willie in it, ton of country stars. Um, the other thing I would, I would, I would say is I'm writing a book in my summer camp and maybe one of the first summer camp books that they've ever turned to a memoir it's called 40 legends who was, uh, uh, 25 years was open. So keep yourself entertained if you're going to keep doing this because otherwise you're going to go nuts. You just got to keep trying to keep yourself entertained. I just hope someone wants to buy it

First. And then a real practical advice

You get about publishers got to buy at first and a reader. That's right.

Look, listen. A hundred episodes ago. I promised you a podcast that wasn't going to talk philosophy. It. Wasn't going to talk about, you know, how to be creative and motivational and blah, blah, blah. Otherwise you could buy that at the hallmark store. This is the podcast where we talked to people who do the job and you've heard it all the way from how do you make money to, how do you write off when you lose money? You've heard it all in between. You got to do the work you got to hustle. You got a carpet and when the opportunities come and Jake has shared it all. So check out Jake brown books.com, check out all about authors, TV, TV, all about the authors TV. I got to get that right. All right, folks, this has been unlocking your world of creativity, where we have continued our travels around the world. We've been stamping our creative passports from Stockholm and Copenhagen and Johannesburg to LA. And now in the music city of Nashville to talk to creative practitioners, find out how they get inspired, learn how they organize their ideas and finally gain the competence and the connections to launch their work out into the world. So until next time, I'm mark Stenson for unlocking your world of creativity. See you then. Thank you mark for your time. I appreciate it.