Blunt Force by Aiden Bailey
TPP EP 10

TPP Episode 10 Aiden Bailey

Aiden: [00:00:00] One of the reasons that I was inspired about setting it there was I was reading about the lava flows and like there’s this point where when they’re, cooling down.

They’re not quite, you won’t fall through them. And, but they’re, they’re warm enough you can stand on. They, they’re cool enough, you can stand on them, but if you stand on them too long, your shoes start to melt. So I had this whole, this chase sequence on other feeling, but I’ve gotta do that. I’ve gotta do something cool like that with Trigger Man. Send him there and put him through the, rigors of rigors of Iceland.​

Mark: Aiden, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today for taking the time outta your schedule.

Aiden: Thanks, mark. Thanks for having me.

Mark: We are today gonna be talking about book six in your Trigger Man series, which is called Blunt Force, and let’s get started with the pitch.

Aiden: Okay, so Blunt Force, the main character is Mark Pearce, code Trigger Man. He’s a [00:01:00] CIA power military operator. He’s in Europe. Uh, there’s been a Panama Paper style release of massive amounts of data and it reveals the location of CIA safe houses across Europe. So the CIA want to shut it down, but also the Russians and the Syrians also want to control the data for their own reasons and are killing anyone who comes into contact with it.

But at the heart of the story, it’s about two siblings who are using the data to right it wrong. And when the Trigger Man finds out about this, he gets his, he gets a second purpose of second wind behind him to, like a more personal mission that he needs to resolve on top of everything else that’s going on. So that’s in the summary.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That’s great. And where did the idea come from?

Aiden: This is the sixth book in the Trigger Man, and I’ve been wanting to set a story in Europe and I think I’m always on the lookout for ideas and I’ve just been reading about the Panama Papers which is [00:02:00] basically, it was a, it was a firm, a legal firm that had released a whole or a whole lot of their confidential client data had been exposed by some journalists and it showed a whole lot of corruption and trading around the world, but it was like millions and millions of files and I thought this would be a really interesting idea.

In the sense that, you know, back in the Cold War you might sell, steal one or two secrets. Whereas this one was about, you know, thousands and thousands of secrets. So what the Russians wanted for and what the Syrians wanted for, and what the Americans wanted for were all different, but they’re all fighting out the same data.

And it was just this kind of like, once the gene out of the bottle, so to speak, you really can’t put it back. And that was where it kind of came from. And then I’d always wanted to set a story in Iceland. Where a lot of the action happens. So yeah. So it was kind of like, yeah, a whole lot of my ideas came together and, uh, I hadn’t brought the triggerman to Europe, so it [00:03:00] was, well, not in a big way so that was the other reason. So, yeah, I’m trying to get the, you know, go.

Mark: Did you use Iceland as an excuse to, to go there and, and actually check it out for your book?

Aiden: You know, I, I, I would love to go there, but that’s about as far away from Australia where I’m as you can possibly get. It’s quite expensive. I have traveled quite extensively. I, I think I’m up to close up to 30 countries I’ve been to now, but some of the places, you know, send your characters, it’s, you know, they, they’re, they’re not easy to get into. Like I’ve said, one story in Central African Republic, and I don’t think anyone really wants to go there. Uh, but it’s, uh, but yes, I have spent, I have spent time in Europe, but I haven’t got to Iceland. But it’s just this incredible scenery. And

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: One of the reasons that I was inspired about setting it there was I was reading about the lava flows and like there’s this point where when they’re, cooling down.

They’re not quite, you won’t fall through [00:04:00] them. And, but they’re, they’re warm enough you can stand on. They, they’re cool enough, you can stand on them, but if you stand on them too long, your shoes start to melt. So I had this whole, this chase sequence on other feeling, but I’ve gotta do that. I’ve gotta do something cool like that with Trigger Man.

Send him there and put him through the, rigors of rigors of Iceland.

Mark: Yeah. I love that moment. That was, that was one of the questions I had for you. If the

Aiden: Oh, okay.

Mark: Are real, so that’s great. Now I know

Aiden: Uh,

Mark: real in that scene. That is possible. ’cause it was very interesting reading it.

Aiden: I actually got out of Brian Cox documentary, the, uh, astrophysicist. He was watching something about, the, the, the Earth and how, um, planet’s form, and, and I just went, he was, he was in Iceland, he was actually talking about the Icelandic fields. I thought, yeah, I’ve gotta use this. And then the interesting thing about Iceland is it’s like all these lava fields, but you’ve also got these glaciers and snow fields and, you know, using the combination of two and just this, you’re putting, putting Trigger Man in his [00:05:00] team in this kind of really hostile environment, but it’s also in Europe. So it’s this interesting juxtaposition there. I had, I had a lot of fun running that. Yeah.

Mark: It was a lot of fun reading it ’cause he went through so much. He had, everything was against him. He was being hunted from

Aiden: Good.

Mark: The weather was against him. The earth was, seemed to be falling apart.

Aiden: I, I, yeah, I think with action, it’s, it is, you know, if you make it too easy for the characters, readers get bored. But if you make it, if he’s not, but if he’s not working his way through it, then they, they’re kind of going like, well, he is not that clever. So you’ve gotta find this balance of like, putting him in danger, but also making him a competent agent.

So, uh, but yes, I think that’s probably my favorite action sequence that I’ve written so far across the six books. Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that.

Mark: Do you find by book six you have to make things harder and harder on the character in order for it to be as, order for your, like your, your [00:06:00] readers to want to continue engaging? Like you feel like you have to, like, okay, in book one, we could do a smaller story. I mean, I haven’t read book one, so I don’t, I

Aiden: Yeah, sure.

Mark: but you know what I mean?

Like if you’re raising the stakes every book.

Aiden: What, when you talk about stakes, I probably put it in three categories. You’ve got the plot, like, you know, what’s at stake of a on a geopolitical level, and this one it’s about, you know, exposing CIA operations because of the exposed CIA houses, CIA safe houses. But then it’s also got the characters, like the characters you’re trying to put them through some kind of arc in, in what they learn and discover about themselves.

But then the other one is the action. And yeah, I feel like it’s interesting when I talk to my publishers and give, throw them ideas about what they always come back to, as they say, as long as there’s lots of action. ’cause that’s what people want. So it is almost every book, I’m kind of going, it, it, you need, I feel like I need at least three good action [00:07:00] sequences.

So starting off with the, the fight sequence in Rhonda in Spain, where it’s that, uh, bridge over a cliff. And then I’ve got the, um, then I’ve got the Iceland chase, and then I had the tain chase in Syria at the end. And I, um, yeah, so it’s a bit of that. There’s a bit of a, so it’s not only the plot and the characters, but it’s also like the timing, the action is also something I think a lot about when I’m writing.

Mark: And what was the research like for this book? Because you had, I was learning all kinds of stuff. You had the Cold War, the Syria, the Ukraine war, the pipeline. I mean, it went on and on. So what, what, like how much research did you have to do and like what kind of things were real and factual? It all read very factual, but I don’t follow closely enough to know, check it. But it, it read very factual.

Aiden: Thanks, to go through the different points. Okay. So when I, I, I, I’d started out as an engineer. I, now, I’m working like corporate [00:08:00] communications, but one of my first jobs is actually on a pipeline in the Outback of Australia. So that’s where some of that experience came from. So, yes, everything with the pigs and, and the oil I, you know, I still work in the oil and gas sector, but I also work in the defense sector. So, you know, I’m, I’ve got all these insights through my work about, uh, how a lot of these, uh, infrastructure projects work. I guess I’m constantly reading, watching geopolitical shows. I’ve traveled, like I said, people travel quite extensively, so I’ve backpacked through Africa and South America and Africa was one of my first trips, and that kind of gave me a big sense of like the difference between what was then called the developed world, the developing world, and the difference in, you know, uh, quality of life and, and, political stability and things like that.

So I think it’s like research is always [00:09:00] on. So a lot of what I’m writing is there, but then as I’m writing it, it’s more the details. I need to stop and go, well, what kind of gun would they have in this part of the world? Or, or, I’m looking on Google Maps to try and get a sense of the terrain that they’re in.

The really interesting thing that happened with this one was while I was writing it, the Assad regime regime got kicked outta Syria, so I had to rewrite the whole ending. Because I had these Syrian agents from the, basically the Assad regime and, and then, and I thought, how can I, how can I, how can I write it in a way that still makes it relevant, even though that regime is gone now?

So, I’ve, I’ve thought I’ve came up with a solution. Hopefully it works, but, um, sorry. Lost my, lost my earpiece there for a second. Um, yeah, so, uh, yeah, it is. I, I guess to summarize, I feel like you, if you are always on research and reading [00:10:00] and you, the ideas will come. It’s just, I find it’s just the detail, like the the minute detail that you need to go and stop and just check something. But that’s a very quick search on the internet.

Mark: Yeah, well it’s helpful when you know, when they say, write what you know, it’s helpful that a lot of that stuff is in your background and in your interests. Because even if you don’t know things, if you’re very interested in it, you can become quite convincing in how much you know when you’re just enjoying the, that learning process as opposed to approaching a book and then having to learn it all because you don’t know anything about it and it just serves the plot you’re not really interested in it.

Aiden: A, another trick I use is, you know, I used to read a lot of National Geographic articles and, and they’d often give you little insights into like what it was like day to day, so you could put this flavor about, uh, what people would actually talk about, what scenes you’d see on the streets. So sometimes it’s a bit of description about where the Trigger Man is and what he’s seeing and feeling [00:11:00] and sensing. I think that also helps to bring, bring a location alive. So I, I do try to do that, uh, as well.

Mark: And how do you decide how much research to include to not bog down the story? ’cause you were talking about three major action scenes, but there’s also, you know, you have information built into all those action scenes. ’cause we’re constantly learning like, how do you know or how do you balance, here’s the background information so you’re aware of what’s going on where he is and I’m not doing too much to bore a reader.

Aiden: Yeah, like when I go back and read some of the classics, like a lot of the Clancy stuff, you can see there’s a lot of exposition about, you know, what’s going on and and, but you can see with modern authors, they started to change that. And I think with exposition to get the story across it is kind of saying enough to tell, to make sure the [00:12:00] readers know what’s going on. But there’s tricks you can use, like, you know, if you want exposition, you can have two people talking, or you can have two people talking on a fast beating train through Japan and one of ’em has got a gun pointed or the other, and then something becomes more interesting.

So it’s about how, where, and how the information is, is relayed. Another trick I use is trying not to introduce too many characters in one scene. So it’s like trying to build them up slowly. So you, you might meet two characters, and then the third one comes in three cha chapters later and then a fourth and so by the time you’ve got a big team of five or six or eight people, how many you are, how many are in that book? You, you’re not ma, you’re not basically forcing the ready to kind of go, well, here’s five people. Remember them all now, you know, you build ’em up slowly. So it’s little, little tricks that I’ve learned along the way about how to do that and, and it’s that Raymond Chandler thing, you know, like if a scene feels [00:13:00] bored, bring someone with a gun and shoot someone, you know? It is, it is you just, you just, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like a rhythm, like you go, yeah, it’s, it’s ticking along. But then now let’s add something else in and let’s just keep trying to escalate, escalate the tension as you go.

Mark: Yeah. I appreciated with, with the book that it started with Pierce and, and it did build the team slowly. ’cause I know in a lot of action thrillers, I have a tough time. Just like you said, when we get

Aiden: Hmm.

Mark: here, meet the team, I guess essentially it’s almost like a flashcard

Aiden: Yeah.

Mark: Every team member. And by the time I’ve read it all, I can’t remember anybody because just so many names and so many details. It was well done. That it was, it was very nice to have that, you know, little character here. And then here’s how they impacted the story or here’s how they impacted Pierce’s life throughout, I imagine throughout the other books, and I’m kind of being brought up to speed.

Aiden: This one is the one where the teams actually come together in a real way in across the six books. So in the first one, Pierce has [00:14:00] kind of almost operating independently, and then I slowly introduced the team over the the last five books. And this is where it all kind of comes together. But I’ve kind of also written myself into a corner where now I’ve got a table of six and each book I’ve gotta try and work out how to bring them all in again each time.

Um, and, and you know, ’cause you gotta, you can’t assume that anyone who’s read the next book knows what’s happened in the previous book. So

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: Yeah, it’s, uh, maybe the team’s too big. I’m not sure. But anyway, we’ll see how we go. But I’m enjoying writing all of them. Yeah.

Mark: And how do you do the, like your writing process in itself, in itself, is it. Did you do a heavy outline? Especially now for this book with book six? ’cause I’ve like, I’ve written a trilogy and by the time I get to book three, I’m like struggling to remember what I’ve said over 300,000 words. You’ve done that for six books. So are you building an outline for this book by the time you got to book six In order to carry it forward without, [00:15:00] you know, just to keep track of it all.

Aiden: I do. I, I’ve, and with incubator, my publisher, they have these writers’ workshops. So the, the people who run it, some of them are out of the TV industry, so they have, they, they used to have what writers’ workshops. So they basically put you through a grilling session of like, they work you through your plot and go, what’s, how does this happen?

And why does this character know this? And does this make sense? Or should, wouldn’t it been more logical to do this? And it’s really good and so I’ve started, I used to be just a writer as I go, ’cause it’s all in my head. But now I’m doing plots on my publishers and that’s actually re refining it really well and giving me good outline.

So now that when I sit down I just go, right, right, right, right, right. Next round. Right, right. And it’s all there. But that said, over six books, I have these, peace has this secret background that I haven’t revealed yet, but I’ve hinted at it. [00:16:00] It. And even though each book is in standalone, if you read them in order, I’m building up this background of where he is come from and what his secret past is.

And I’m also building up this villainous group in the background that’s gonna come out more and more in the book. So I do have an overall kind of arc where it’s going, even though each book will be individual. So yeah, there’s a lot of checking and cross checking and, you know, I’ve got this timeline of like, how long ago each book was.

In, in character time, even though real world time is, you know, the character time is a lot slower than real world time is, and we, you know how action heroes never age. It’s, anyway, it’s, yes, there’s a lot of juggling, but, I’m, I write in my day job. I, I write, proposals for, uh, engineering projects and I just have to be on all the time, like, so I’ve learned how to write quickly and to pick up information and write it fast. So,

Mark: Cool.

Aiden: And, and then in that, in that [00:17:00] industry, I’m trying to pick up a lot of information very quickly and then turn it into content that a client can understand. So, yeah, I suppose that has helped.

So, yeah, I suppose I just do it naturally now without even thinking about it. But yeah, it took a long time to get there.

Mark: That’s interesting that you say helped rather than hindered. ’cause I would think having that much of a workload on your mind would almost make you come home and be tired. When you wrote the book, you like, was it like every day writing a bit? It sounds like you have a lot on your mind, so it’d be tiring.

Aiden: I try and come home and write for a couple hours every night. But, you know, sometimes you just work gets in the way or something’s on. I write, I try and write on the weekend as well. But I, yeah, I can literally just, I, I guess one trick, another trick that I’ve learned is that, you know, when I’m doing something like going for a walk, riding my bicycle, um, uh, [00:18:00] you know, cleaning, whatever it is, I’m just thinking, thinking through ideas.

So I’m often thinking about the next scene and what’s gonna happen. So that when I actually do have those half an hour, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever, you sit down and write, I just, yes, I can go straight into it. I don’t have to kind of think about it. So I’ve done the thinking beforehand. So again, there’s lots of little tricks that, yeah, I’ve learned over time about being more efficient in the way that I write.

Um, but I’m drawn to it and I, I love writing the Trigger Man. I’ve really got into it. And hopefully this will be my publishers just want me to keep writing it. You know, so hopefully I can keep it going for like 15, 20 books maybe more.

Mark: Yeah. Do you have a plan for that series? Like when you’re talking about revealing certain things, is there a number

Aiden: Yeah,

Mark: All that like you have kind of in mind? If you don’t mind sharing it.

Aiden: Yeah, sure. Um, so I’m working on book eight, sorry, book seven now, which is set in the Mexican drug war and then book eight potentially going to reveal pieces. [00:19:00] Deep background. And then from there I’ve got probably two or three more books planned out in reasonable detail. And then I’ve got this kinda long term plan about where it can go and some of the background elements that come out. So it is kinda like the further into the future you go, the more vague it becomes. But I, I feel like I’ve got enough to keep it going for quite a while.

Mark: Awesome. I look forward to continuing to read them.

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: I really enjoyed Blunt Force.

Aiden: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I like, I, I just, I really enjoy writing them. I have a lot of fun and, uh, yeah, I’ve been really, I’ve been really happy about how well it’s sold and the reviews I’ve got. So they’ve all been, for the most part, really, really positive. So, yeah, it was

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: Fantastic.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Deserved for sure.

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: So looking at characters for this book, you, there were a lot of viewpoints. [00:20:00] How did you keep track of all that? And when you’re on book six, maybe these, I should ask these individually, but do you, how do you keep track of arcs for the characters? Because in some books there’s the character goes through this journey from beginning to end and they come back changed, so to speak. But then we also have books that are like Jack Reacher as an example, where he doesn’t change very much because it’s a series and we love what we get from Jack Reacher. We don’t need him to go through these big changes in his personality or, know, how do you balance all of that? ’cause it was, it was great, but, and I, I got it all, but I, I was just thinking while I was reading it, like writing all these characters, it’s like, wow, here we are with this person and this person.

And like, and they’re all unique and they all go through so much. It’s like, that’s a lot.

Aiden: Yeah. How do I answer that? I suppose, uh, so Pierce has this background, which, uh, when I came up with the idea, I thought, this is really great. [00:21:00] I don’t know if anyone’s actually done this before. I won’t say what it is ’cause it hasn’t come out yet. But, I thought, but then when I started thinking about the implications of what that background would be, was it kind of started to flesh out why he reacts the way he does and this kind of conflict that he’s got and yeah, a lot of thrillers in this genre that I’ve read, they tell you straight away, you’ve done two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, and he’s the top guy to mark and you, and it is all laid out for you. And I went, no, no, no. I wanna do the complete, the complete different approach. A bit like what Tom Wood did with his Victor, the assassin.

You don’t know anything about him. And I find that really intriguing. You know, like, so who is he? Where’s he come from? And, uh, and I, so there’s a lot. So as he’s, but as I, as I write him he becomes more real and it’s kind of easier to, to write him, if that makes sense. And then I just put him in a different situation, that kind of brings him up, that, uh, that confronts him [00:22:00] with his thoughts and beliefs. So in this one, you mentioned, you know, like I had a whole lot of Cold War references. I mean, his parents were spies in the Cold War, which was revealed in this one.

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: And, and so then that’s bringing up his emotions about how he feels about that. And then I’ve got the, the two other main characters in there are Rachel Zane, who’s another paramilitary operator like Pierce.

And I’ve got a deep background on her, which has come out some of the earlier books. And then Mackenzie Summerfield, which is the team’s analyst. And she and Pierce have a long history together and they’ve been caught through quite a bit together. And you, and you just kind of go, what can I do with each of them?

You know? And the other thing that, uh, you know, like Jack Richard doesn’t change, but one thing my publisher says is, I think it’s more than 50% of my readers are women. And they, [00:23:00] I think that’s because I do have those character Arc and those, those uh, the depth and the change in the characters. I think that’s, that has helped me get into that market or that de that, um, demographic of the market.

So,

Mark: Yeah, that makes

Aiden: so, yeah.

Mark: And what about tracking all the characters? Do you have like a, a notebook of, of all the different people and their personalities before you start writing? Or,

Aiden: Uh.

Mark: Come to life because you’ve, you know, you’re imagining them as you are doing things like you mentioned.

Aiden: A lot of people have said to me like, you, you can retain a lot of information in your head, and maybe I can. But yeah, because I, I, I do have notes, but there’s a lot of it. I just, it’s there and I can remember back, or if I can’t remember, I can remember which chapter it was in, in the previous book and go back and go right there it was.

Mark: Okay.

Aiden: So yeah, it’s not, I don’t find it that difficult to be honest. It’s, maybe it’s [00:24:00] just something skill that I’m lucky. I, I dunno. But,

Mark: Not, I don’t have the skill. Yeah,

Aiden: But, but you know, it, editing is really hard for me, so, you know, it takes me so everyone’s got something and everyone’s that helps ’em. Something’s got something, holds ’em back, so, yeah.

Yeah.

Mark: And what was it like writing the villains? Do you find getting into the villain head, the villain’s head, difficult to give their perspective, make them seem human, not a caricature of this genre.

Aiden: So I’ve worked in a lot of big companies where, where I would call it like it’s a high density sociopath. And, and you see some of the people who are running companies or projects or things like that, and you go like, why are they making those decisions? And when you start to realize that they just don’t care about other people, [00:25:00] you kind of make sense.

And luckily I’m not in that world anymore, but I just, I started to realize that there’s just these, they’re very, very small part of the world, but they’re the kind of the narcissist and the sociopaths. And the psychopaths that just, they just don’t care about anyone and they’re all about themselves.

And I just like this idea of, blowing ’em over the top. So for example, in, um, uh, book Five Shock Front, that’s about a, um, and former soldier who terms paramilitary and he’s basically like, he’s almost like a cult leader. He, everything he says he believes.

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: And, and he’s got this island of Komodo dragons, which he feeds anyone. He feeds people to that disappoint him, and they sort over the top and, but you make them really, really bad. And then people go like, they’ve gotta die. They’ve gotta get the justice. And it’s, it’s, it’s, um, yeah, just [00:26:00] so I try and draw real world traits from people like sometimes you can just watch politicians or business leaders on online and, and just some of the things they say and you go like, you know, I could use that because that’s like a super film would say.

But then you give them something like James Bond esque, like a, like a, like a island full of Komodo dragons just to make them that big, crazy. So yeah, they’re, they’re fun. Um, yeah, I just, but it’s, it’s trying to find something that makes each one different. I think there was, ’cause in, in my third book, I had a, an assassin who was also a comic board artist and kept drawing comic illustrations of everything that he’d, done to kill people and just, and, and then suddenly he was like this, he just became more real to me, even though he’s just this crazy killer.

Mark: Yeah, I love that drawing his killings. Well, unfortunately we are running low on time, so I have a few, a few more, couple [00:27:00] more questions for you. And

Aiden: Yep.

Mark: Mostly for those who are authors that are listening to the show. And I’d like to know what advice you would give someone who just publish like book one or book two. So they’re beyond the, I need to find time to write and, you know, they’ve written a book, they’re getting into it. And now what, because this is a, a stage that’s also quite difficult and overwhelming depending on if you’re traditionally published or, well, either way.

Aiden: Yeah. Uh, one, I was originally thinking of self-publishing Trigger Man, but that takes a lot of time and effort to kind of understand how to digitally market your books. Right. So, and I tried self-publishing other books before to varying success. But then I was a group of authors that I’m with and one of ’em was reading it and he said to me, just send it out to some publishers.

[00:28:00] So there’s a lot of digital publishers out there now who are looking for thriller authors, particularly action thriller authors and all the main thing I would suggest is if you’re going to a publisher, check to see how many reviews their books have on Amazon. So if they have five or six, they don’t know how to market it.

But if they’ve got thousands on their books, then they know how to market it. And you know that, don’t write your book to then get it stuck with a publisher that doesn’t know how to promote you and get it out there. I guess that’s the biggest advice I, I would give, you know, do your research on that. But I, I actually, but having a publisher like Incubator, which are fantastic, it allows me just to concentrate on writing the books while they do all the, the marketing.

It’s, and, uh, and it’s a reasonable arrangement, with, how they split the, the, um, profits. So yeah, I, I would, yeah, that’s what, two or three books I would go try and find a hybrid publisher, uh, not a hybrid publisher or a digital publisher.

Mark: Okay,

Aiden: Yeah. [00:29:00] Okay.

Mark: Did Tri was Triggerman, did you submit it for the first time and it was accepted?

Aiden: I think it was the third place I submitted it to. But yeah, Incubator picked it up and they, they’d been mostly doing vigilante justice, like the Jack Reacher or approach to, you know, my guy walks into a town and kills all the bad guys..

Mark: Yeah.

Aiden: But mine’s more along the lines of like a Mark Greaney, Gray Man. You know, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s with the CIA, he’s traveling around the world. I think I’ve sent him to about eight books. I think I’ve sent him 45 countries already. And yeah, so there was a bit of risk for them there, but it’s been one of the bestsellers. So, uh, yeah, look, it is been life changing for me. It is. It’s doing really well. I, I made a really good choice and I was lucky to get with, with Incubator and I’ve got a great editor, Alice [00:30:00] with Incubator, so she’s been really good at honing the stories and improving them too. So yeah, get a good editor is the other thing I suggest.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Well congratulations on that success.

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: Three times is a low number. That’s really good.

Aiden: But to give you context, I’ve been writing for 30 years and, you know, 30 years I was barely making any money on my writing and it was just a hobby and I was trying multiple genres. And it was only when I got into the Trigger Man that things turned around. So, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time getting there. I think it was, I, when I started writing the Trigger Man, I went, you’ve actually gotta start writing for the market. You know, what does the market actually want? You know, to what are the tropes, what are the, the expectations people having to throw off? Or what do they want from their main character? And once you start to write in, in a market approach, it’s easy.

It’s to sell. Or for publishers to go, yeah, we’re gonna go with this. ’cause that’s that work in the market [00:31:00] zone. Yeah. Trigger Man worked, but every, everything else before that didn’t, so, you know, it’s not always, it’s not always a smooth road. Yeah.

Mark: Okay. Fair. Well, that’s that’s

Aiden: Yeah.

Mark: Congratulations.

Aiden: Yeah.

Mark: So last question. Where can people find your books and learn more about you?

Aiden: Well there’s Blunt Force there, so that’s book six. You can get it on Amazon. It’s exclusive to Amazon, so it’s on the Kindle Unlimited and you can get it in the first three books. You can get in audio, but you can also get it in print as well. So basically Amazon or you can go to my website, which is aidenlbailey.com

That gives you more information. We can find my books.

Mark: Okay, great. Well, thank you so

Aiden: Thank you.

Mark: I really appreciate it. If you don’t mind sticking around for a few extra minutes after the show, I do,

Aiden: Sure. Thanks.

Mark: Bonus questions for the newsletter subscribers that only they get access to.[00:32:00]

Aiden: Definitely. Thanks Mark.

Mark: Thanks again. ​