Book of D by Jay Capron on amazon.com
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| Book of D by Jay Capron |
Blue energy: In your hands, it can heal the injured, find the lost and disable your enemies. It can get you high and supersize your sex life. If you're a Bluebody, you can live forever, unless you squander your gift.
Bluebodies: Everybody knows, they’re mentally unstable. A threat to the social order. And they stink! Most of them end up in government hospitals. Rumor has it, there’s a bounty on Blue.
‘Book of D’ is the story of D Boy, a twenty-something Blue in denial about his true nature, living under false ID’s with people who treat him badly, unemployable due to Blue traits he can't control. His life gets worse when he's forced to come into his gift, to save the tribe from extinction because, “When all the Blue are gone, the world will be gone.”
D's mentor in the ways of Blue is his half brother Ted, a psychotic trickster. Promising to train D as a 'cosmic consultant', Ted lures him to the Restricted Zone, where they meet a predatory cop, a young woman on a quest to get in touch with her dead sister and a cannibal she-devil, hot and ravenous for Blue.
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Author Quiz interviews Jay Capron...
Tell us a bit about yourself and your work as an author.
Only three people know I wrote BOOK OF D. I’m trying to keep the writing from screwing up my personal life and vice versa. Only a certain slice of the population is going to ‘get’ my stuff. The rest of them will think it’s bad or even offensive. There’s no way my boss or my grandma should see it. ‘Jay Capron’ is a pseudonym.
Where did the inspiration for BOOK OF D come from?
I overheard a conversation wherein two women were picking on another woman about her beliefs. She was obviously hurt by their comments. I was tempted to intervene but didn’t because they were strangers. My character D gets into a similar situation with a girl named Jane, and the empathy he feels for her adds dimension to their relationship. D is not a ‘bro’, or as Charles Fudgemuffin might say, not a ‘lad’.
If you could invite one character from BOOK OF D to a dinner party, who would it be and why?
D’s half brother Ted the trickster. If you believe in the Blue, you can be in his crew. You won’t feel any pain, and the party won’t ever stop, although you ought to keep an eye on Ted, in case he decides to use his gift as a weapon. If you’re not into Blue, you still might enjoy his bizarre dancing and snarkasm.
Who do you see as your target audience?
BOOK OF D is adult fiction appealing to young readers, but it’s not YA material. In terms of gender, it’s about a young man’s coming of age but it also appeals to women, since part of D’s story is told from Jane’s point of view. In terms of genre, it’s a mainstream story with futuristic elements, not science fiction. In sensibility, it’s five degrees more highbrow than Judd Apatow movies. In terms of politics, it leans libertarian or conservative, but it’s too out there for social conservatives.
Can you remember the moment when you logged into your author account and discovered you’d made your first sale?
You mean, my only sale. What does it feel like to make $1.43? Better than a kick in the head, but I made more the last time I cleaned out the couch.
What strategy do you use for getting reviews?
Pay for play. I had a deal with a guy whereby he was going to review BOOK OF D in exchange for me reviewing his. He never followed through. Then I found out Amazon doesn’t allow writers to exchange reviews. Oops. I had just assumed that was how it’s done (must be the Chicago influence on me). Anyway, I stopped trying to arrange deals with people. That’s why I've had no reviews. I guess I need a new strategy.
What do you think stimulates sales the most, positive reviews or advertising?
Positive reviews. I’m hoping somebody reading this will be my first reviewer.
Would BOOK OF D work best as a movie or a TV series?
The story would lend itself better to a TV series. It’s complex. Making a two-hour movie out of it would require a too much cutting. In terms of TV, there’s already enough material for several episodes, and the same characters could easily have more adventures together. Special effects are an obstacle but digital production could surely pull off some of them on a TV budget. By the way, BOOK OF D is a normal-sized book. For some reason, Kindle formatting strung it out to over seven hundred (small) pages.
What advice would you give to a new author who has just finished writing a first novel and is unsure as to what steps to take next?
Stop! Would you go on a date without checking yourself out in a mirror? No. Then, don’t click on ‘publish’ until at least one other person has read your book. No matter how well you write the first reader will find the literary equivalent of spinach in your teeth. Consultants charge a few hundred dollars and up to a read a novel, but a friend might read yours for free. May you have better luck finding readers than I’ve had so far. When I told someone I’d written a novel and asked her to read it, she said, “A novel? Really? Do you want that last piece of pizza?” As far as I know, no one but me has read BOOK OF D.
How do you see the publishing industry changing over the next few years?
Nearly everything I read says the economy is about to get much worse. I expect more bookstores, including large chain stores, to close. Even libraries may reduce their hours as municipalities cut budgets. Lots of people will be unemployed or underemployed. For on-line publishing, this bleak scenario is great news. What better to do, when you’re down and out and hanging around the house with no work, than download an e-book for 99 cents or free?
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Thanks for your comments, Jay, and good luck with your writing.
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A short extract from Book of D:
We spend a few moments with cannibal she-devil Wendy, Ted’s stalker and would-be soul mate, after D has thrown her off Ted’s trail her by telling her to go to Two Duck Lake:
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Next morning, beside another deserted lake in the northland, Wendy and her big, black dog rested on a bed of wildflowers.
By this point in their journey, the Red-eyed hunters were famished to the point of weakness. In terms of their peculiar dietary needs, they found themselves in a food desert. While gifted as a predator-seductress, Wendy was deficient in critical thinking ability to the point she had fallen for D’s disinformation about Ted’s whereabouts, and gone where he said to go. Yet, her man was nowhere to be found.
Out on the lake, two ducks swam. Duck meat was the lowest form of cuisine for cannibals, worse than fish, not merely subhuman but high in cholesterol.
Python licked the empty cooler and whimpered like Lassie when Timmy was in trouble. Wendy knew he needed extra nutrition after his overnight flight and multiple morphings, but until their desperate situation improved, all she had for him was a tibia, already picked clean of meat.
For her own sustenance Wendy pulled up a clump of pink-flowered wild chives and ate it, roots and all, in hopes its garlicky savor would stanch her cravings.
All it did was make her burpy.
In distress, she took up her orb and whined at it, to a lower power. “Daddy! I can’t live on icky flowers. I need meat to feed my powers.”
A cloud passed over the sun, making everything a little darker.
A motorboat appeared on the lake, with a lone man in it.
Hope renewed, Wendy picked up her cleaver. “Finally. Lunch.”
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Find out more about Book of D at Jay Capron's website:
jaycapron.com
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Follow Jay Capron on twitter:
@jaycapronwriter
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To quote Jay Capron, Book of D is, "...a little dark. Not recommended for social conservatives or persons under age twelve."
Book of D by Jay Capron is available for Kindle from amazon.com:
Book of D by Jay Capron on amazon.com
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