Book Publishing Secrets with Christopher Kaufman #books #bookpublishing

 

Christopher Kaufman is an author, composer, presenter, illustrative artist and performer. He started imaginative fantasy books with illustrative art at the age of nine. During high school years he found music and attended The New Orleans Center for The Creative Arts and went on to major in music composition in college. He finished his schooling – earning his DMA in music composition at Cornell University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize Winning composers who prize his abilities as a composer.

Christopher is the type of person who needs imaginative fantasy scenarios to get to sleep. Therefore, he emerged from Cornell, not only with his degrees in music, but with the full event structure for his classic epic fantasy series Tales Of The Ocean City in his mind.

He began writing the story down in the early 2000’s, but it did not really come to life until he developed his home music ‘laboratory’ and started creating the music and text at the same time. Thus books one and two of TOC came about simultaneously as both graphically illustrated pages and effulgent audio albums filled with cinematic epic symphonic music.

They exist now as physical books and audio albums (that go together) and the new Video Book version.  He performs live tours with the music pouring through speakers, live narration and the colorful pages streaming on screen – a true immersive multi-media experience.

He also maintains his career as a composer for the concert stage with a full body of work, from solo works thru orchestral. He specializes as well in ‘environmental works’ which feature soundscapes crafted from hundreds of natural sounds, live musicians (from soloists, chamber groups and to full orchestra), videos filled with both natural and artistic images and readings from the works of John Muir and others.

Kaufman’s books feature full-page graphic illustration and go-with audio albums filled with epic cinematic music, narration and sound design.  All available, with generous discount packages, at kaufmantales.com (epubs and the new Video  Book version available there!).

His author page is talesoftheoceancity.com.

His you-tube channel is SOUNDARTUS.

Visit him at Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/talesoftheoceancity.

📙Is this your first book?

The first book of this five-book series was indeed my first book ever. Many since! It has been in my mind for many years.

Tales Of The Ocean City tells the tale of a young civilization turning the corner into the future. The city as a whole must do this by facing a terrible enemy from the deepest past, The Vorm - with whom they co-evolved in ages past on their ancestral isle. The main characters are young Harl’ut and his lifelong companion, Vispushin - who is a perianth (a kind of telepathic pegasus).  They are very close, like family. They speak to each other mind-to-mind.  Harl’ut too must face the past.  At the end of book two he undergoes an initiation adventure where he descends into the volcanic mountain, Pla’than’taa - from the belly of which The Ocean City was delved. There, he interacts with personifications of past god-like figures and battles a terrific monster. He then leads a cadre of young warriors into the Vorm Hive on a vital mission.

All of this is a huge metaphor for my life’s journey.

📙With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?

I started right off with independent. It is part of my process to see the book and make adjustments. This is because the book pages feature full-page graphically illustrated art.  I need to see how it comes out - this has led to finding a POD distributor which makes the best books, i.e. Book Vault. With others the colors come out dark and smudged looking.

📙Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey? The pros and cons?

It takes a lot of work to learn about self-publishing, creating your online store, find cover artists and websites. It is good to see and feel your book, since it is a work of art, and be able to make adjustments.  The challenge is in getting the word out.

📙What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?

Keep at it. Enjoy the process as an end goal and take it from there, same as any artistic pursuit.

📙Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?

Certainly - it may, in fact, be the only way open to you.

📙What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?

Write because you have to.  Your stories must emerge from your being. Have a higher purpose than making money, then it will come. All of my works celebrate the transformative power of imagination. I believe in that power as demonstrated in the fine arts and, especially, great fantasy stories. Much of my work is about feeding and growing imagination in one way or another. I hope people experience my work and then feel differently about how they experience the world around them.  Imagination is the highest function of the human mind - it gives us art, music and scientific theories…and helps us envision a better future for ourselves and our civilization. It has been damaged in many ways in our modern lives. Fantasy can help cure this.