Jonas Saul
is an International Bestselling Author with loads of talent and a core group of
readers who’ve stayed with him throughout his career. It’s this loyalty that has kept him on the
bestseller list and he rewards them with quality writing and massive
production. It seems like he releases a
new book every week, but that’s just the jealousy talking. I first met Jonas a few years back when he
entered a writing contest I’d run through this blog. It was quite obvious even back then he was
someone to keep an eye on. Now he’s one
of the top producers in the business. He
was kind enough to remember my name and spend a few minutes to play 5 questions
with me.
1-
Your Sarah Roberts character is unique. Tell us about the series. Who is Sarah
Roberts, and how is she different from other protagonists?
Sarah is an Automatic Writer. Her sister, raped and
murdered many years ago, works through Sarah by giving her messages of future
crimes. Sarah has become a vigilante but with a unique twist. She talks to the
dead to save the living.
The Sarah Roberts Series began when Sarah was eighteen
years old in Dark Visions, Book One. Now in Book Ten, The Antagonist, which is
available for preorder and releases April 22, she’s twenty five years old. During the course of the series, Sarah has
matured, and grown into a woman. As the readers move through each book, they
get to grow with her.
She’s a realist. She tells it how it is
and never bluffs. She lives by certain rules that have kept her alive and she
has a unique ability to see through people as she’s quite aware that everyone has an agenda. Learn the agenda, understand
their motivation.
2- Talk about the Mafia Trilogy. How did this
come about, and will it spawn any other books?
The Mafia Trilogy came about one day when I was
reading the newspaper. I had read a piece about a UPS driver in New York who
had hit a young girl with his truck after she had run into traffic. The incident
was deemed an accident by local authorities. A little while later, that UPS
driver was found dead by an execution style hit.
The little girl was the daughter of a reputed mob boss
in New York.
I was taken aback by this article so I wrote the Mafia
Trilogy. It starts with the son of a Mafia boss in Toronto being killed by
accident and the fallout that came after that. Except in this case, the Mafia
suffers great losses.
I have no plans to write anything further in this
series.
3-
You’re an extremely prolific writer. Tell us when
you were able to convert to writing full time and how many hours a day do you
actually spend on your craft?
For over twenty years I ran several privately owned
retail stores. In early 2010, I sold off the last of them as I wanted to pursue
writing as a career. My wife offered to keep working outside the family home,
so I made her a deal:
Give me one year. At the end of that year, I will be
making enough money from my writing that she would be able to quit her job and
never have to work again.
She agreed to this deal and quit her job a year later,
early 2011.
I began writing full time in April 2010 and have been
doing so since. By May of 2011, my wife and I took off for a two-year tour of
Europe where I could write freely and use exotic locations in my novels. I now
have two novels set in Italy and two novels set in Greece.
When I’m immersed in a novel, I write 5000
words per day, six days a week. During that time, I start in the office by
9:00am and usually finish by mid to late afternoon.
When I’m not writing new words, I’m on social media, I’m researching the next novel, or performing edits on the last one.
Currently my output is six novels per year as a minimum.
4- You and your wife travel all over the world
together. Where is your favorite location to visit?
We spent two years traveling through eight European
countries. For me, the eleven months we lived in Greece were my favorite. Italy
is a close second. But so is Denmark. Three months in Denmark wasn’t enough. We’re already
planning a trip back to Europe for a month or two this summer with Copenhagen,
Athens, Rome, Amsterdam, and Florence as destination cities.
5- What is your next project and what’s on the
horizon for Jonas Saul fans?
For now, I’m focused on
the Sarah Roberts Series. I have The Antagonist coming out in April and then
The Redeemed due in June. After that, The Haunted should be available by August
and The Unlucky, Book Thirteen in the series, should be out for Halloween.
My goal is to have 50 Sarah Roberts novels by the time
I’m 50 years old. I’ve got five years and just over thirty more books to
go. At six novels per year, I’m still on target.
Also, I’m attending
the Thrillerfest Conference in New York at the Grand Hyatt in early July this
year. Seriously looking forward to that!
There are a few other things in the works with one
LARGE announcement coming soon, but I can’t elaborate
on that just yet.
Thank you Gary Ponzo for taking the time to work with
me on these questions. It’s an honor to know and work with
such an accomplished author as yourself. You have my respect.
