KWL Live Q&A – Edge of Your Seat: Thrilling Insights with Tikiri Herath

[richardmurray]

KWL Live Q&A – Edge of Your Seat: Thrilling Insights with Tikiri Herath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3m0TwOnyBo

 

Carl Frankin the director of the film devil in a blue dress said the noir genre isn't profitable, do you think your books genre has an audience in modern film?

AS I WATCHED

0:06 When did you finish your first story?
0:12 what inspired you to write thrillers?
0:15 did the accolades for the first book make the next daunting or set a fire, it is unusual for a irst book to get such accolades?
0:18 any common pitfalls or tropes writers should avoid?

 

she admitted you need to ask what reader want. Her first book won award but not what readers wanted. 

nice idea, what they like, what they don't like, here are the gaps... I need to be more concerned to readers:) 

 

0:21 Researching for technical  or details?

She asked law enforcers and one even wanted to read the book
learning studying adjusting in cycles
just read the three star reviews and up, once you are starting out, at her eighteenth novel, she goes to her audience
right, when a n author has a fanbase you use your fanbase to guide

0:27 What about plot twists in your books, any tips, do you know before hand?

she tried to be a gardener, she decided she is an architect, she will embrace it... she uses the black swan theory
White swans convicts to Australia, when you say white you think beautiful, when they arrived in Australia they saw black swans. 
Black Swans are low probability but high impact, and she defines a plot twist as such. 
So how to recreate black swans in the fictional world. She makes several baby black swan and a baby black swan at the end. 
she adds black feathers, so it forms a creature at the end. She plots at the beginning. Form her job, figure it out, what will it be 10 years down the road. So in her writing, lets do the other way around. 
She finds free hand helps her. 
she tends to have a 5000 to 10000 outline and she knows the black swans. and she gets up day to day and then massages it

0:36 which plot twists or black swans stand out in literature or film?

steve jobs says you can always connect the dots backwards, she loves those
she refers to Chinatown
chinatown
chinatown john huston plays the father and he made a child with his daughter, faye dunaway

0:39 How to market thrillers, how has being analytical helped?

She decided from the beginning to say she wanted to start a business, she didn't want to sit in a booth and drink maugeritas.
She planned the same way for her job. If she can plan a nine hundred million dollar  then she can plan her tiny little book business.
now she does quarterly marketing plans.
She admitted she lost alot of money. Before she left her job she put her financial house in order. 
The biggest mistake she made was listening to people that followed a route who wasn't helpful, they may have made their money during a goldrush when their actions don't apply anymore or they have access to markets or associates she doesn't.
does technique x work today
She did facebook ads , she spent $6,000 dollars and lost it all. it was a big lesson. 
Figure out who should she listen to, will their techniques apply to me or will their techniques apply today

0:43 How the indie community help?

It helped and didn't help. What made her lose alot of money didn't help. She ask more questions now to others in the community. 
What have you sold, when have you sold? have standards , and if some one says i am making millions of dollars on TikTok, well what books, how are you making , and more questions
It is helped cause i am not alone. It isn't a race, she has given herself ten years. 

0:47 how do you balance your time creating to commercial management?

I can always make more money and you can't make more time. 
she refers to someone who says people spend so much time cutting coupons and don't spend it on something
sunday home day, Saturday 5,000 words day 
The Eisenhower matrix, importance versus  urgence , a square with four quadrants, if everything is urgent or everything is important then burn out, but if little then what life is that?
when you manage large scale projects you have to prioritize
Saturday, what is the most urgent, the bottom left hand quadrant, is important but not urgent, best place to spend time. 
Sunday morning is her day off

0:52 What about nonfiction? 

Her husband had an accident and changed life. She made four self help, she hated writing them. they don't sell. but she wrote them for herself. She meditates. But she promised she will never write nonfiction again.

0:54 What are working on right now , Q4? 

18th novel, an fbi detective and a canine, everyone loves her canine dog. She is thinking of writing a new series. 
readers say you can commit genocide in your books but dont touch that dog:)

0:56 you can do box sets?

I plan on doing that. 
her readers are used to three to four books today, she will not write more with the more tools. she has to take sundays off. 

0:58 do you take days off?

In her job she dreaded Mondays and loved Fridays. 
she wanted in the next phase of her life to enjoy Mondays
and when she left she had to recreate a new group. the fire in her belly came from seeing the women who had less rights outside the western European zone. 
In her mind, Canada is the best country on earth

 

IN CONCLUSION
One thing i learned is her personal experience has many takers among the women in the western eruopean cultural zone which includes the usa and Australia. She is a multi immigrant who found herself in the western eruopean world. and many people especially women in modern humanity , non white European women find western eruopean countries,includes the usa/Canada/Australia beneficial but still like to connect to the non western European peoples, so her themes have great width in modernity. 

 

HER BOOKS ON KOBO
https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/search?query=tikiri+herath&ac=1&acp=tikiri+herath&ac.author=tikiri+herath&sort=Temperature&fclanguages=en
her webpage
https://tikiriherath.com/
Writing on the dark
https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/writing-into-the-dark?srsltid=AfmBOoruvZk-R82Mg4LdnN3_9jsWHEqDY99XUXdBxCItcueWR5StDulF
Eisenhower matrix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management#The_Eisenhower_Method