Pump Up Your Book Chats with Gordon Gumpertz

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Gordon Gumpertz brings fiction readers another exciting action/adventure experience in his new novel RED HOT SKY. This is the author’s second book, following his highly acclaimed novel TSUNAMI.

In addition to writing novels, Gordon has won gold and silver awards in national and regional short story competitions. He is a member of the Authors Guild, the Palm Springs Writers Guild, a UCLA graduate, and an instrument-rated private pilot. He keeps his website current by blogging on natural disasters and natural phenomena.

Gordon and his wife Jenny live not far from the San Andreas fault, where the Pacific Plate thrusts into the North American Plate, building increasingly high levels of faultline stress which, the seismologists say, may soon produce the Big One.

Visit his website at www.tsunaminaturaldisaster.com.

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About Red Hot Sky

CO2 buildup in earth’s atmosphere reaches a tipping point. Global weather destabilizes, turns chaotic. Ice storms, dust storms, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes pummel the earth nonstop. A secret computer model reveals that the frantic weather will peak out, and transform world climate into an alien environment devastating to human survival.

Scientists Ben Mason, Claudine Manet, and Bertrand Short are developers of the computer model. Ben and Claudine are lovers as well as lab partners. While they work frantically to head off the approaching catastrophe, a disgraced Russian general hacks into their model and sees earth’s bleak future as his opportunity for ultimate world power.

Ben, who had left the CIA to develop the computer model at the national lab, is reactivated by the Agency and sent on a perilous mission to block the rogue general’s plot. Claudine, not realizing that Ben is on a secret mission, misunderstands his absence, putting their relationship on thin ice.

Claudine is placed in charge of a massive NASA project that, if completed on time, could stop the approaching doomsday climate change. But her project is stalled by bureaucracy. Ben is on the run in hostile territory. The climate change calamity steadily approaches.

Hi Gordon! It’s so nice to have you here with us today. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Gordon: I’m a native Californian, raised in a small farming town north of L.A. I’m a UCLA grad, an instrument-rated private pilot, an army vet, a retired advertising agency owner and copywriter, and now a fulltime author. I like to read, take long walks, watch sports on TV, work crossword puzzles, and search for the ideal French fry. I’ve published two adventure novels: Tsunami in 2008, and Red Hot Sky in 2011. I expect to publish my next book in 2012, and I have one more in first draft form coming after that. I also write an occasional short story. My short stories have won gold and silver awards in national and regional contests. I’m a member of the Authors Guild and the Palm Springs Writers Guild.

August 2008 you published your first book, Tsunami. Would you like to tell us about that experience?

Gordon: I published Tsunami with a small press. I’d been trying to land an agent for several months without success when the publisher called and said he’d seen some of my chapters and would like to publish my book. I was eager and signed the contract. Unfortunately, he did not live up to the publishing and promotion schedule promised in the contract. When Tsunami was finally released in October, 2008, the recession had hit and all book sales were tanking. Of the several thousand copies that had been sold and shipped to book stores, half were returned. I never saw a penny of royalties. I cancelled the contract and had all publishing rights returned to me. I started selling Tsunami on my website where I blog on natural disasters. Sales have been excellent and very steady. I’m happy with the arrangement.

Then, three years later, you published your second book, Red Hot Sky. How was publishing this book different from the first?

Gordon: I decided to self publish with Amazon’s CreateSpace and sell the new book on my website alongside Tsunami, my first book. The process went smoothly. CreateSpace is very cooperative. I signed up with Pump Up Your Book to get some buzz going about Red Hot Sky, and to drive more traffic to my website, www.tsunaminaturaldisaster.com.

Can you tell us the rewards of being a self-publisher?

Gordon: One is monetary. Amazon gives a 70% royalty on Kindle sales. I make more selling a $4.99 ebook on Kindle than selling a $14.95 paperback through a bookstore. After the publisher, distributor, and retailer take a profit on the paperback, there isn’t much left for the author. Another advantage is time. At my age, I don’t have time to take months to find an agent, and more months for the agent to sell the book to a publisher, and more months for the publisher to schedule the book for production and release. The process can take years. I published Red Hot Sky with CreateSpace in five months from submission of manuscript to release of book. And that included many revisions of cover design, text, and interior design of the book. The publishing world is changing.

Is it as hard to become your own publisher as people make it out to be?

Gordon: I found it fairly easy. CreateSpace does everything digitally online, so there was a short learning curve on how to respond to requests coming through on their dashboard. It took me a couple of weeks to catch on. After that, everything went smoothly. They’re always available by phone if you have a problem.

As an octogenarian, I find it amazing, inspiring and positively enlightening that you are publishing books later in life. Why did you wait so long?

Gordon: I wanted to start my writing career in my twenties when I got out of the army, but I was newly married and had to make a living. I opted not to live in a garret on the left bank to pursue my dream, but instead got a job writing copy for an advertising agency. I was good at it, and opportunities for advancement kept coming. After working for several agencies, I opened my own ad agency with two partners, and that kept me busy up till the day I retired. I consulted for a few years after that. Then I FINALLY started writing adventure fiction, which is what I’d always wanted to do. But no matter when you start or how much talent you have, you still have to go through a learning process to become a well-rounded writer. That’s an argument for starting early, which I wish I’d been able to do. One advantage of starting later is more life experience to draw on. But agents and publishers like young writers who can build up a following and produce profits for many years.

What’s a typical day for you?

Gordon: We arise at 6:00, and I usually get to my desk by 8:15. I answer email, pay bills, and make phone calls first, and start writing by 9:00. I write till 11:30, take a little break, then take my beautiful wife Jenny out to lunch. We’re usually back by 2:00 after running a few errands. Back to my computer to write till 4:30 or 5:00. Sometimes life interferes, but that’s the schedule I try to keep. I’m happy if I get in five hours of solid writing time.

I’ve read some of your other interviews and you mention your wife being both a supporter and a good critique partner. I love it when the spouse fully supports their life mate in whatever they do. When do you suppose she caught on that writing books was what you wanted to do?

Gordon: Jenny was a freelance manuscript editor, working with doctors who wanted to publish books for the lay public. While we were both working, we had many discussions about life after retirement. We both expressed a desire to write. She was interested in writing short stories, and I in writing adventure novels. She enrolled in night courses in creative writing at UCLA, and I hooked up with a best-selling author, who taught writing at UCLA, as a mentor. He coached me through my first manuscript.

Where do you live and what do you like doing for enjoyment?

Gordon: We live in Palm Desert, California. We’ve made a lot of friends here, we’re active in the Palm Springs Writers Guild, and we both lead critique groups. The desert weather is dry and mild, except for July and August, when the temp can hit 115. That’s when we get outta town. We like to spend a month travelling, and a month in Marina del Rey where we lived for 30 years before retiring. It’s an L.A. beach community just south of Venice Beach and Santa Monica. I enjoy reading, walking, movies, sports on TV, crossword puzzles, and dining out with friends. I also like doing research in the earth sciences field for my blog and to make the natural disaster themes in my novels authentic.

What kind of advice would you give any writer no matter how old they are as far as getting their book published, read and adored by fans?

Gordon: Whether you want to self publish or slug it out going the traditional agent/publisher route, take the time to learn your craft. Writing courses, workshops, critique groups, editors all help you get the feedback you need to keep improving. When you submit your work, make sure it’s as perfect as you can make it.

Thank you so much for this interview, Gordon! What’s next for you?

Gordon: I’m getting my third adventure novel ready for publishing. Title to be announced.

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Question of the Day

How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

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