Hello, beautiful readers! Today I have the honor of hosting Ron Yates, the incredible author the Billy Battles trilogy. He is currently on tour with 4WillsPublishing to promote it. In fact, those of you who leave a comment will have a chance to win his books! More details are at the end.
GIVEAWAY: (2) Complete sets of the Billy Battles trilogy. For your chance to win, please leave a comment below!
So, I hope you enjoy this Q & A with Ron Yates!
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Don't let anybody discourage you from pursuing this work if it is genuinely
what you want to do. Don't be intimidated by rejection. You must believe in
yourself, your ideas, and your stories. If you don't, who will? Certainly not
that dense editor or literary agent who couldn't see your potential or grasp
your book's storyline.
Is being a writer a curse or a gift?
It is a beautiful gift if you allow the process to come to you and don't
force it. However, don't let anybody tell you it is not damned hard work. It
is. The joy of writing for me is telling a good story. I don't care about
imparting a "message." Nor do I care about creating any hidden
"meanings" that some literature professor will hold forth about in a
writing class when I am no longer around to rebut him/her. I just want to tell
a good story. That, to me, is the ultimate goal of writing.
The curse is that writing can take over your life, isolate you from family
and friends, and turn you into a kind of sophistic recluse if you are not
careful. Writers need to take breaks from working. If they don't, I believe they
run the risk of becoming stale, self-absorbed, and misanthropic.
Where do you write?
I have taken over the upstairs bonus room in our house. It is about 500
square feet. In it, I have my rather extensive library, a good sound system for
playing classical music, a large screen TV for watching sports, Discovery,
History, and National Geographic channels when I need a break from writing. My
window looks out onto a plant and boulder-strewn foothill that rises in front
of my house. Another window looks down onto the Temecula valley some 2,000 feet
below. It is quiet and soothing. I couldn't have a better place to write.
Do you prefer silence or some noise while you write?
I like to listen to music when I write. Most often, I listen to Mozart,
Haydn, Telemann, William Boyce, and Beethoven. Classical music played softly,
is inspirational, and helps me think. However, I also like the jazz of Dave
Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, The Modern Jazz Quartet, George Shearing, etc. and I
will, on occasion, switch from classical to that.
What do you typically drink while writing?
Icy iced tea.
What challenges have you had in regards to your writing life?
When I was a working journalist for the Chicago Tribune and then a
Dean and Professor of journalism at the University of Illinois, I could never
find large enough blocks of time to write consistently. Writing requires HUGE
amounts of time and long periods of seclusion--things most of us don't have.
Therefore, the time to write was always my greatest challenge. Now that I am no
longer administering a college, teaching, or working full-time as a journalist,
I am blessed to have a lot more time to write than I ever thought I would have.
When did you first start and when did you finish your book?
I started the first book in the Finding Billy Battles trilogy in 2010, but I
wasn't consistent in working on it. I buckled down in the spring of 2013 and
probably wrote 60% of it in about five months. I started Book #2 in the trilogy
in December 2014 and finished it in 2016. I began Book #3 in the trilogy in
2016 and finished it in 2018.
What does your protagonist think of you? Would he/she want to hang
out with you?
I think Billy Battles and I would be good friends. We are both journalists,
and we both like going to new places and experiencing new challenges. Also, we
both enjoy a good cold beer after a long hard day.
How do you market your books? What avenues work best?
I am still learning how to use the vast universe of social media for
marketing my book. In addition to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, of course, my
book is on Goodreads, Smashwords, Google Books, Createspace, NetGalley,
Independent Book Publishers Association, as well as the Historical Novel
Society, my blog, my author page on Facebook and the book's website,
ronaldyatesbooks.com http://www.ronaldyatesbooks.com/
What has been the harshest criticism of your book so far?
Most of the critical comments have been minor. A few people found the 19th
Century Kansas vernacular my characters use in Book #1, an annoyance. Book #2
has very little of that because Billy Battles is now in Asia and Europe. A
handful of people said they didn't like the fact that the book is part of a
trilogy because they had to wait for Books #2 and #3. I like THAT kind of
criticism. There have been some comments about formatting and typos that I and
my editors clearly missed, and I try to fix those when I see them.
What has been the best compliment?
There have been several, but I will list just four here. You can find these
and other reviews on the book's Amazon page:
"This trilogy is easily the best work of fiction I have read in
some time."
"Billy Battles is as dear and
fascinating a literary friend as I have ever encountered. I learned much about
American and international history, and you will too if you read any or all of
the books. Each is an independent work, but if read in relation to the others,
the reader experiences that all too rare sense of complete transport to another
world, one fully realized in these pages because the storytelling is so
skillful and thoroughly captivating. Trust me; you'll want to read all three
volumes."
"There is something about this trilogy that is almost impossible to
explain, but it takes it from being a *good* story to a GREAT one."
"Move over Elmore Leonard and Pete Dexter--there's a new deputy
sheriff in town."
Is anything in your books based on real-life experiences or purely
all imagination?
That's tricky. I call my work "Faction" because it is a blend of
both fact and fiction. Some of the events in the book--especially those dealing
with real people, did happen. Was my character directly involved in them? No.
However, members of my family were native Kansans, and some of the experiences
I write about did happen. Of course, I have woven some of my own experiences
into the storyline also which I hope provides the story with an essence of
realism.
How did you come up with the title?
I had been trying to think of a title for years. I didn't like any of them.
Then one day, this one just jumped out of my brain and into the computer, and Finding
Billy Battles was born. That was the title of the first book. I titled
Book #2 The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles because, in this
book, Billy's adventures take him to Asia and Europe. I called Book #3 The
Lost Years of Billy Battles because, in this book, Billy disappears
for several years. Why? You will have to read Book #3 to find out.
Will there be a sequel to the trilogy?
I am thinking about a couple of sequels to the trilogy. One will focus on
Billy's semi-outlaw cousin, Charley Higgins. Another will focus on Billy's
great-grandson who writes Billy's story and who embarks on a few adventures of
his own as a result of what he learns about his great-grandfather.
What project are you working on now?
I am finishing a book about foreign correspondents in Asia. The working
title is: "Asia Hands: A Tale of Foreign Correspondents and
other Miscreants in the Orient." I am also pulling
together reams of notes for when I finally decide to write about own life
covering war and mayhem as a foreign correspondent.
Please fill in the blank: Keep Calm and___________:
Laugh--a lot! It's good for the mind and body.
BOOK BLURB:
The Finding Billy Battles trilogy tells the story of a
remarkable man who is born in 1860 and who dies in 1960. For decades Billy
lives an improbable and staggering life of adventure, peril, transgression and
redemption. Then Billy mysteriously disappears. For several decades his family
has no idea where he is or what he is doing.
Finally, with his life coming to an end, Billy resurfaces
in an old soldiers’ home in Leavenworth, Kansas. It is there, when he is 98
that he meets his 12-year-old great-grandson and bequeaths his journals and his
other property to him — though he is not to receive them until he is much
older.
Years later, the great-grandson finally reads
the journals and fashions a three volume trilogy that tells of his
great-grandfather's audacious life in the old west, as well as his journeys to
the Far East of the 1890s—including French Indochina and The Philippines—and
finally, in the early 20th century, to Europe and Latin America
where his adventures and predicaments continue. One thing readers can be sure
of, wherever Billy Battles goes trouble is not far behind.
AUTHOR BIO:
Ronald E. Yates is a multi-award winning author
of historical fiction and action/adventure novels, including the popular and
highly-acclaimed Finding Billy Battles
trilogy. His extraordinarily accurate books have captivated fans around the
world who applaud his ability to blend fact and fiction.
Ron is a former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and Professor Emeritus
of Journalism at the University of Illinois where he was also the Dean of the
College of Media.
The Lost Years of Billy Battles
is the final book in the trilogy and recently won the Independent Press Award’s
2020 Distinguished Favorites Award. In 2019 it also won Best Overall Book of
the year and the Grand Prize in the Goethe Historical Fiction Category from
Chanticleer International Book Awards as well as a Book Excellence Award and a
New Apple Award. The second book in the trilogy, The Improbable Journeys of
Billy Battles, was published in June 2016. It won the 2017 KCT International
Literary Award and the New Apple Award in the Action/Adventure category. The
first book in the trilogy, "Finding Billy Battles," was published in 2014
and won a Book Excellence Award and Laramie Award from Chanticleer
International Book Awards.
As a professional journalist, Ron lived and worked in Japan,
Southeast Asia, and both Central and South America where he covered several
history-making events including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia; the
Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing; and wars and revolutions in Afghanistan,
the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, among other places. His
work as a foreign correspondent earned him several awards including three
Pulitzer Prize nominations.
Ron is a frequent speaker about the media, international
affairs, and writing. He is a Vietnam era veteran of the U.S. Army Security
Agency and lives just north of San Diego in Southern California’s wine country.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
AMAZON OR OTHER PURCHASE LINKS:
Amazon:
Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/finding%20billy%20battles/_/N-8q8
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author's tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you'd like to schedule your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and his work!
