A Literal Journey

Embrace the Weird || Frank L. Cole on Writing, Publishing, and The Legend of the Last Library

• Seth Adam Smith • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Imagine a future where paper is treasure, stories arrive in seconds, and the cliff notes are all you ever get. That uneasy thrill sparked Frank L. Cole’s The Legend of the Last Library—and it’s the thread we pull on as we dig into speed, meaning, and the quiet power of reading the long way. Frank shares how an impatient moment with AirPods became a full-on dystopia, why the rewrite that nearly broke him made the book sing, and how a single found novel rewires his heroine’s life in a world that’s forgotten what reading feels like.

We get personal and practical. Frank traces his path from early scares and school visits to a career shaped by persistence, hundreds of rejections, and a community that opened doors. He owns his pantser process—messy, intuitive, and sometimes maddening—and explains how recording voice notes, reading chapters aloud, and letting characters breathe keep the spark alive. We also revisit Potion Masters and Champion’s Quest, exploring research, real-world ingredients, and the kind of cover art that pulls kids into a universe at first glance.

Most of all, we talk about connection. How teachers and librarians help kids find gateway books. How reading out loud turns stories into family rituals. How a single thank-you at a signing can redefine success more than any sales target. Frank’s themes—friendship, courage, embracing the weird—show up on every page he writes, offering a gentle counterspell to shortcuts and algorithms. If you’ve ever wondered what we lose when stories come too fast, this conversation makes the case for slowing down, turning pages, and letting a book change you.

If this resonates, follow and share the show, leave a quick review, and tell us: what book hit different when you read it slowly? Subscribe for more author deep dives and craft conversations.

Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or book lover, this conversation will leave you inspired to open a book and embark on your own “literal journey.”

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My name is Seth Adam Smith. I’m a husband, father, and author who believes in the power of stories to inspire people forward.

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SPEAKER_01:

Everyone wants something faster. And the idea for the story kind of came from my my AirPods. I was listening to an audio book and I was it was kind of a slog. I was getting through a book and it was taking a long time. And I'm like, that'd be great if I could just get through this and get it all, get the idea and move on. I'm like, oh, that'd be kind of cool if there was a device that could do that. And then you start thinking, well, what's the danger? What do you give up if you get everything so easy? If everything comes so quickly, what are you what do you lose? And I think with stories, um, if it comes so fast that you don't have to to work for it. And and when you read a novel or or I mean, I think audiobooks too. I think when you listen to an audiobook, you can you can have that same journey. You experience a connection with the characters and the connection with the story, and it's different for different people. Like I might read The Lord of the Rings, and I get something, and my favorite characters could be different than someone else's favorite characters. And my connection, and it has a different impact on me because of when I was reading it and what was going on in my life when I read it.

SPEAKER_03:

And in today's episode, we definitely have a fantastic author of fantastical stories, Frank Cole. Frank L. Cole was born into a family of Southern storytellers and wrote his first book at age eight. It was, of course, a masterpiece, but it was lost, and Frank has spent the rest of his life trying to remember it. That's what I would say too, if I I'm like, I don't know where what I do with that masterpiece. I lost it. Currently, along with his wife and three children, he resides in the shadow of a majestic western mountain range, which is most likely haunted. I'm gonna have to ask you a follow-up on that. Uh, Frank has visited hundreds of schools nationwide, promoting the value of reading and using imagination to solve problems. And he can now say with confidence, the library has no need to hide from me. The legend of the last library is Frank's 15th published book. Frank, so thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview. It's an honor. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm excited uh to chat with you.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, real quick before we get into the the real questions here, what do you what do you mean by the haunted mountain range? What what leads you to believe that your mountain range is haunted?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh maybe not, maybe I don't know if I believe it or not. I want to believe that it's haunted. I would I would love I'm a big fan of anything like that, anything creepy. I was talking to a guy the other day, and he was an older gentleman talking about his farm, and he mentioned some sort of ghost story, and I was hooked. I didn't even care what he was saying after that, and everyone else was kind of you know, just you know, laughing it off. And I'm like, tell me more, where did you see this? I want to take my kids. So I came home and told my old my middle son, he's 21 years old, and I told him about it.

SPEAKER_02:

He's like, We gotta go, we gotta go see.

SPEAKER_01:

How old? How old are your kids? So my oldest is 23, and he's married now. Um, and he's been married for a year. Uh, I think he's 23, almost 24. And then my middle son's 21, just turned 21 a couple weeks ago, and then my daughter's 17.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, you did good. I I've learned that dads aren't really expected to know the exact age of their kids. You know, it's okay. We get past most of the time. Yeah, birthdays and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Sometimes I'm like, uh, yeah, I get I get their birthdays. I think I got their birthdays down. Uh sometimes sometimes I forget how old they are.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, um, I'm with you on anything haunted. When we got our um this house, they built this house. We're out in Grantsville, Utah. Uh, and when they built this house, you know, my wife's very serious. I'm very not complete opposite. So walking through it, and they're at, you know, we're walking through it with them, and they they said, you know, you have any questions? My wife was asking a lot of questions, and then they came to me and they're like, Did you have any questions? I was like, Yes. Was this house built on a graveyard of some sort? Uh, any any stories of hauntings? And they looked at me like I was joking. I was like, Listen, it's it's actually a selling point if it was. I would be more interested in the hawk.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, 100%. I'd be more interested. I mean, it depends on the type of ghost. If they're gonna really torture us, I don't want to be in that. But if it's like a ghost pops up every now and then, that's fun.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you want a funny story. I mean, it's just yeah, it adds variety, you know, to doing laundry and dishes, like, well, there's a ghost here too.

SPEAKER_02:

So just knock the dishes over. That's okay.

SPEAKER_03:

That's yeah, you you go one side, you turn around, and all the things are stacked up like all culture guys to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I told you this is gonna be a very different interview than what I saw in uh Frank's bio that uh there was mention of Bigfoot, and I was like, oh yes, this is gonna be a great one. This is gonna be a good one. Well, give our uh our listeners, our viewers, uh a bit of background on yourself. What's what's your personal story and what got you into storytelling?

SPEAKER_01:

Um yeah, so I I started pretty young, uh, really enjoying just creeping out my friends, creeping out my family. I I started uh scribbling down ideas uh in junior high. I mean, in in elementary school, I would I would come up with stories. And then I remember writing stories like horror novels, trying to write horror novels and scaring my brother and sister, and they didn't like it. Uh and then it just kept continuing. And then when I got married, my wife was the one that suggested that I try to get published. And I'm like, oh yeah, I should do that. And of course, if for those that have tried to do that, it's not like uh, oh, today I decide to be published and tomorrow I am. It's it was like an eight-year journey of hundreds of rejections, of trying different things out. My first book that I thought was amazing was never published, and it will never be published because uh it's just not very good. Um, but then I finally found a publisher that would take a chance, and I did seven books with them and then I was able to get an agent, and my agent Shannon was phenomenal at selling my next uh I guess it's been eight, eight or nine books that she was able to sell to different publishers. So I've been doing it for my first book came out in 2009. So we're going on uh it's over 16 years when my first book came out.

SPEAKER_03:

Tell her tell our listeners about your first uh your first published book. What was that like? Uh writing it and then actually getting the acceptance for that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so it was uh because it was very difficult. Uh I because back in the day you didn't send emails out, you had to print off your manuscript and send them in envelopes. And I think I sent out a hundred plus envelopes of manuscripts to different publishers, and they were all no's. And most of them weren't kind at all. They were just no, not interested. Let's try, you know, that type of thing, and very brutal. And sometimes I wouldn't get it back. And I try to figure out where the manuscript was. But I finally I was introduced to uh Cedar Fort, which is a smaller press. Um, and they were interested, they said, Yeah, we'd we'd be like we'd like to see what you have. So I sent them my first book and uh three months later they came back and said, No, this is not we don't want this, but we like your style. Um could you send us something else? And I had happened to be writing for the past five years on a book called The Adventures of Hash Brown Winners. I think I have it. Yeah, it's this this one right here, The Adventures of Hash Brown Winners. It's a little really silly elementary age kids um with a sixth grade mafia, playground prison, that sort of thing. But it was it was like me growing up in elementary school, you know, with the imagination of a third and fourth grader, and that's the one that made it. I remember when that email came through and said we would like to publish it, and I was kind of shocked. My wife was the one that screamed because I've been trying for so long, and and that's just how it got started. So then it's uh, you know, yeah, that was 16, 17 years ago when that happened.

SPEAKER_03:

How do you come up with uh more ideas? Like what at what point do you say, hey, this idea is good? I'm actually gonna spend a lot of time on this because it's quite the commitment once you get to that point to decide to write a full manuscript and then carry through to the end. What at what point do you think this is a great idea?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I get a lot of ideas. Um and I think uh now I I have a you authors have a lot of self-doubt, you know, and so we're we always kind of edit ourselves and think that. But I think when an idea doesn't leave and it's just I start uh asking questions and I can I come up with answers and I'm like, oh okay, I really like how that for example, I was uh the The Legend of the Last Library, my most recently published book. I was actually supposed to be pitching a horror novel, a middle grade scary story. That was the my my agent said, Hey, why don't you try? And I wanted to write some as well. So I pitched some ideas and they weren't kind of landing. And I pitched a couple more, and at the very end, I had just had this idea of paragraph about this girl in the future that hunts for paper because paper doesn't exist, and she ends up finding a book and it leads it to the last library. And my agent said, That's the one. What is this one? I'm like, I I don't know. I just that kind of came to me, and uh that's the one we we pitched, and that's the one that we put out. So it's it's interesting how it comes about like that. You just don't you don't always know what's gonna stick and what isn't gonna stick.

SPEAKER_03:

You might think one idea is gonna be amazing and then it's not, but yeah, so so related to that, um in the writing world, we we sort of have a spectrum of of writers. There's there's plotters, people who plot out their story, the structure meticulously. Uh and then there's pants, people who are doing it by the seat of their pants, just seeing where it goes. You know, where would you say along that spectrum you fall?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm a 100% pantzer, and it's very difficult to be a pantser in the publishing world because I don't think publishers love pants, they appreciate what we do, but at the same time, they're like, no, if we're gonna buy this book, we want to know exactly what's gonna happen. I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen. And it and it's it's very difficult. I'm I'm pantsing my way through a book right now, and it's hard, it's so hard, but I can't write any other way. If I try to plot it out, the creativity just dries up.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, related to that, uh I have a question about you know what the hardest part of writing is for you. Is that what you would consider to be the hardest part of writing?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, yeah, I think I think that yeah, I think that's well, it's hard to say. I think it's after the book comes out and then trying to sell your book and trying to get readers, and then uh that's very difficult because your your your writing journey doesn't stop once you've published a book. Now you've got to make a connection, you've gotta meet readers and you've gotta convince people to buy your book, all while not trying to sell them your book. You want them to just find it and love it, and and it's that's a that's a difficult process of it. But yeah, I think pantsing is so hard. I I have some friends that are plotters and they drive me nuts because they know exactly what they're doing, and they can they can go and sit down and write for an hour, and it's very productive. I can sit down for four or five hours, and all I've written is a sentence, and I have no idea what I'm doing. And it was a waste of a day, I feel sometimes.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, I'm I'm a little bit on the pantsing side when it comes to characters. I let them there's room for them to breathe and and do their own thing, but man, I've got a map out. I got I got an extreme map with like a story, like I know where I want it to go, but how they get there, that's a little fluid.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, I think event I've gotten to the point where I plot a little bit more now, where I have a general idea, but the problem is when I'm pantsing them off a different direction and never I figure a way to tie it back. I'm like, that is way off. I did that once with uh a second book in the series, and I I came up with this crazy ending that I loved at the time, and it was published, and then I had to write the third book, and I'm like, I don't have any idea how to wrap this up. I have no idea. And I kept asking, can I write four books? And they're like, No, it's a trilogy, you gotta write the third book, and that's it. And that was so hard to write because I had created the problem myself.

SPEAKER_03:

So then uh that's the hardest part of writing. What would you consider to be the most joyful or the the best part of writing?

SPEAKER_01:

Um probably the same thing, because well, when all of a sudden an idea hits you and it just consumes you and you see it come together. I was I read to my wife a lot, so I'll read she's probably so sick of it, but I read bits and pieces and chapters to her, and when when the story is starting to evolve and come together and it's filling in the gaps, it doesn't feel natural. It feels like this is otherworldly what just happened. How did the story come out of my head that is really confusing? Uh, and so when that when it starts to come together, um it's kind of a a cool, a really cool moment. Um, and then meeting readers. I I love it. I my readers are are younger, and so I get to meet readers, and when they're excited to to meet me and my story has impacted them some way, that's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

When you when you read the stories to your wife, are you doing the voices? Yeah. Yeah, okay, good. I'm not the only one.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, yeah, and I can see and she knows she's rolling her eyes because I'm like, well, that's might not be their voice, but that's the only voice I know how to do right now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

When you're when you're driving in your car or something, and are you writing out scenes and you're act kind of acting them out and yeah, and I've I've I've my favorite app is like the little voice recorder.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm like, oh, and so I'll hit the voice recorder and I'll just be driving and talking and telling myself an idea.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's genius. That's what you do. You that you're taking notes on stories, and then I'll go back and then I'll start typing it up.

SPEAKER_01:

What I and then it gives me like I have a notes page, which is thousands and thousands of words of little audio clips that I have put in. And sometimes I delete them like that's a dumb idea. I'm not gonna do that. But I when I when it hits you, you've got to find a way.

SPEAKER_03:

So I do know who Jonathan Stroud is.

SPEAKER_01:

I do know who John, I've never met Jonathan Stroud, but I loved John some of Jonathan Stroud's books over the years.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I interviewed him. I mean, he and I are friends now, and and his I probably closer to his um his marketing agent. Um, but I was asking him, it's like, do you, when you're writing books, you know, do you do voices too? And I was a little too excited about it. I was like, so you do voices too. And he looked at me and he goes, No. And I went, Oh, me neither. Those people are weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I I don't know any author does that. That's just crazy. Um at what point uh in writing and publishing did you feel like, wow, this is actually successful. I'm I'm doing this is incredible what's happening. Did you feel a moment of success?

SPEAKER_01:

Um I it's been hard. I I it's hard. We you have to take a step back every now and then. I'll uh you know, it's other people that usually remind me of the success I've had, and it it helps. But sometimes I I look at it and I'm like, gosh, that book just didn't hit, and that book didn't hit, and that and no one wanted that one. And um, and you and I've had books that I thought should have been just phenomenal and they just didn't. And so I think the last library has done really, really well. Uh it's won some awards. I've never been an award-winning author before, so that was kind of cool to see that. But but most of the time I feel like if I don't write anything else, then no one's gonna remember me because it's just you just you just feel like you're not a success. And uh unless you're you know you're hitting the New York Times bestseller list and selling millions of copies, which I have not done. Um, it's very, very difficult to believe that I've been successful. But family members, friends will say, Can you believe you've done that? And I'm like, yeah, that is kind of cool when I sit back and think about it at that point, but it doesn't last very long because you just don't think it's going well.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that's interesting because I I had one author, she had said she didn't feel successful until she started having to pay taxes on her books. Um she's like, now I feel successful because I have to pay for my success. That's a good way to put it. I don't know about that. So huh. As soon as the government wants a piece of what you're doing, then you know you're you're being successful.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, in that case, I I am successful then because I pay taxes on those books.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I will say, uh once we you know locked in the interview for this, I was like, I was telling my friends. I told my wife, I was like, I got this is a great, this is his name. People know his name because they knew when I would say Frank Cole, and they're like, Oh, yeah, I know him. There's some authors that they're like, what did they what did they write? But they knew you by name. Really? So yeah. Well, I like one of them. That's awesome. I know, yeah, one of them, one of them knew you by name because your your your wife had written a dear john letter to their their son.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, oh, so you're friends with those people.

SPEAKER_03:

No, I'm not. I'm not. We were talking, uh it was before we were recording. We were talking before um Frank's Frank's wife had had written uh a Dear John letter to to someone that the the the son of one of somebody who who had come up to get the book signed or something.

SPEAKER_01:

It was at a store and uh I I recognized the name. I'm like, oh, I recognize that last name. I think my wife, Dear John, someone with that last name, and it was her son. So yeah, that was awkward.

SPEAKER_03:

So you're known for known for lots of things. Heartbreaking, all good things, all good things. Um, talk to me about the Potions Masters, because uh from what I can see, that's that's been a very successful series for you.

SPEAKER_01:

That is probably it, you know, you can't, it's hard to pick a favorite series because you if you've written lots of books, you you love them all, they all hold a special place. But if I had to pick a series that I would I would want to be known for for the when I die on my gravestone, if they did that, it would be for Potion Masters. I love Potion Masters. I wish I lived in that world. I think it's a world I would love to live in. I would love to write more books in that series and continue on with the story. Um, it it really holds a special place for me. Um, and yeah, it's just a series of uh uh society of potion masters that live in our neighborhoods and live amongst us. And there is a uh uh the main character is a 12-year-old who's a natural potion master, and he gets caught up in a a potion war that started by his evil grandfather, and it's a trilogy, and it's uh yeah, it's a lot of fun. I I loved it. I loved researching for it. I always tell people that was my favorite book to research for, and they're like researching for a magical word world about potions. I'm like, well, yeah, because most of the ingredients, if not I'd say 99% of the ingredients are actual ingredients, you can't make a potion, but I've researched you know the countries and the areas where they where they were could be found, and it was just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03:

So for fans of potion masters of the series, you what you are saying is that there is a at least a hope and perhaps a potential of additional books. Yeah, it's probably a a fool's hope.

SPEAKER_01:

It's uh it's uh I guess you know, a lot of times it's it's depends on the publisher, you know, and and what they feel will will resonate with readers, and and it would be a different story because that trilogy of those that story ended, but there are so many characters that I could write spin-off tales. I would love to write more. I've I actually get emails. I actually that's not the one I get the most emails from. The one I get the most emails from uh about is Champion's Quest. That's another book series that's only two books. I get a ton of emails asking when I'm gonna write a third one because it does leave it kind of open. Um, and my answer is always like I hope one day I get to write a third one, but I I do think I'll I will finish that series series one day. I I my plan is because that one is left open.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, and you're not supposed to judge books by their covers, but Potion Masters and Champions Quest, they've got some great covers. Yeah, they're awesome covers.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So, what was one of the hardest experiences that you had uh while writing or publishing or marketing a book? And how did you overcome that that challenge?

SPEAKER_01:

So it just recently, well, somewhat recently, The Legend of the Last Library. Um, I submitted it. And again, this was a book that was pants. I I gave him an idea, gave him a synopsis of, but it was a rough synopsis of what I was gonna do, and then I turned it in, and I felt really good about it. And my agent thought it was really, really strong. And then I had a meeting with the the editors, and they're like, Yeah, you gotta rewrite this, you gotta rewrite this. Pretty much, it felt like I rewrote the whole book. I did, I mean, all of the elements were there, but I had to add new parts of the story, I added new characters, I changed, I removed characters. Um, it was a grueling process, and it really kind of shook me a little bit because I hadn't had to do that in a long time. Um but that book is the best, probably the best all-round book that I've written. Um, so I had to do that to get to that that that level of quality for me, but it was the hardest thing. It really made me wonder if I could keep doing this, keep writing, just because it was so hard. But that but it's I think a lot of authors are they're coming out, they don't realize the the amount of editing because the editors, that's their job. They know they they see all these issues and problems that I can't see, and I couldn't see it until I've rewritten it, and then I've actually gone back and looked at the original draft, and I'm like, Oh yeah, this is I I needed to rewrite this whole book. But at the time, you know, you think I'm I'm amazing, I don't need to rewrite this. And they're like, Yeah, you're not that great. You gotta rewrite this whole thing.

SPEAKER_03:

And they're and it was Shadow Mountain, so they're really friendly about about it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, they're all my friends, you know, and so they I never felt like they were uh that there wasn't that friendship, there wasn't that trust there. I felt they always trusted me, I just didn't know how to do it, and um, but now I'm so glad I did. So I think that's a good a good lesson to learn. Uh, you know, it was super hard, but the the end product is way better. It's it's it is, it's my best written book that I, you know, as far as the how the story comes together and and the the themes that are that are told in that story. I think it really is a the strongest book I could have put out for myself, but it went it was miserable. It was miserable rewriting that whole thing. And so I never felt like they were angry with me or they were finished with me or anything like that. I never got that. I I they're really I'm really close friends with them, and uh, they were just being brutally honest, and that's what an author needs to hear, even though I hate it, you hate hearing it.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, you spend all that time writing and you're like, and you want me to do it again? I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And where did I go? Where did I go off course? Like, well, the whole book.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm like, oh so so, really early on, what you're saying is when you that first line after that, yeah, I just start over. Okay, okay, I can do that. That's easy. Yeah, um, well, dovetailing with that, maybe it is the legend of the last library, but what's what's been one of the most rewarding experiences that you've had after writing or publishing a book?

SPEAKER_01:

Um yeah, I would say it's the last library. Seeing it seeing the fruits of that, you know, it's it's been on some school lists, it's been uh it's won some awards that um I I didn't, you know, I'd never been cons and maybe I'd been in consideration before, I just didn't know about it, but um, I've been able to travel a little bit with it. I've got some places that want me to come and speak because of that book. Um, I think it really resonates with a lot of people because the the theme of that story is is very real, even though it's a futuristic dystopian type novel. There's a lot of things that people feel could be happening and could happen. And so I it I think that's probably the most rewarding, I would say, um, of the of the series, of all the books I've written, I would say that one is probably the most rewarding, but it was also the most brutal.

SPEAKER_03:

So we'll give our give our listeners uh and viewers a a synopsis or an uh an idea of what the the book is about. And is it part of a series?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh not yet. I don't know if it will be a series or not. So um it's a standalone dystopian novel, takes place hundreds of years in the future, and in the future, uh a great calamity has happened and uh which wipes out most of the trees. It also impacted paper, and so because of something that happened, there's there's there's isn't paper, there aren't paper books. Um, people go looking for scraps of paper because it's worth a lot of money you can find for a scrap of paper paper for auctions and whatnot. And uh no one reads in the future, they just download their their books into their mind with a little device, and it's uh kind of gives you like the cliff notes version of the story. But this girl, Juni, she can read because her grandfather taught her how to do that, and she is a plifter, a paper lifter. She goes looking for paper because she's trying to make money for her family and for her grandfather, who's very sick, and in the process of doing this along her journey, she discovers a book and she thinks she's gonna be wealthy, it's gonna solve all her problems. Um, and then something happens that compels her to read that book and it changes her. She has this connection with a story she's never had before because she's never had she's never read a book, she's always downloaded uh stories, and in the process, she discovers this secret list of clues that could that leads her and her friends on a journey to find the last library on earth that was put away and put underground to protect it. And uh, of course, she's not the only one. There's an organization that's looking for it as well, and uh, so she's got a hunt to find the last library.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, these secret societies and their little their plots trying to. Yeah, they're all something going on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they won't they won't leave everyone alone.

SPEAKER_03:

So whenever there's a treasure, there's always a society, always always surrounded. Um that sounds uh very applicable um while you're uh talking about it. It it sounds very applicable to current day themes of you know, there's a lot of uh information digitally available, and you could have synopses provided for you if you can go into Chat GPT and just get a synopsis on everything, clip notes on everything. Um, but there's you're saying that there's tremendous value in actually sitting down and physically reading a book. Well um, what gave you that idea? That is that is that connected to speaking to kids and and sort of the challenges that they have in the digital age?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I 100% think you know, I everyone wants something faster. And the idea for the story kind of came from my my AirPods. I was listening to an audio book and I was it was kind of a slog. I was getting through a book and it was taking a long time, and I'm like, that'd be great if I could just just get through this and get it all get the idea and move on. I'm like, oh, that'd be kind of cool if there was a device that could do that. And then you start thinking, well, what's the danger? What do you give up if you get everything so easy? If everything comes so quickly, what are you what do you lose? And I think with stories, um, if it comes so fast that you don't have to to work for it. And and when you read a novel or or I mean, I think audiobooks too. I think when you listen to an audiobook, you can you can have that same journey. You experience a connection with the characters and the connection with the story, and it's different for different people. Like I might read The Lord of the Rings, and I get something, and my favorite characters could be different than someone else's favorite characters. And my connection and it has a different impact on me because of when I was reading it and what was going on in my life when I read it. Where if it was just downloaded instantly and I get the idea, and it's like a movie trailer, and I'm like, yeah, it's like a movie trailer that spoils all the movie, and you're like, okay, I've seen it, I know what's gonna happen. Um then you really don't experience that story. And I think in this digital age where everything is so easy, uh that that this book kind of um explores what would happen if the information that you're getting is being controlled by somebody else. So you don't get the information that you think you're getting, you don't get the full story because it's being controlled or being altered or edited, and you have no other way of getting it because it's all through the same device that everyone uses. And so when you have an actual library with printed books with things that cannot be altered, that's when you get the real story and the real information. So yeah, I think it's a lot of stuff that could happen. I think it does happen. You know, AI, you uh you know, you go on Google or any of these uh apps and you type something in, you get some information. I mean, oh that's good, that's that's the truth. Well, maybe, maybe it is, maybe it's not, maybe it's been uh you know uh curated for for what you're looking for, and it's not the whole truth to the story.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, we are seeing that too. I mean, there's countless examples. I don't know how well people research it, but there's countless examples of AI uh actually telling what the programmer has has told them to tell, and it's not necessarily the truth. Um, or it just gets things, it embellishes things. And so if you take that as gospel and you're not doing your own research or critically thinking, then yeah, that is a definite possibility.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, I like the idea of taking time to read a story, what you were saying about how it how it has a greater impact as you're as you're processing and not and not just quickly downloading the story, because um, I'm seeing that right now with my own kids. We're going through the Harry Potter series. I was never a major Harry Potter fan, but they are, they love it, and so I'm going through the stories and just taking time to either read it or play the audiobook for them. And you just like a little bit of a chapter a night, and they process it and they talk about it, and we go to school and they come home and they're excited, and it's a shared experience. Um, it's so much better than if, you know, as you say, a book could just be downloaded into a brain. Here we are sharing a story and an experience together, and and that is just much more um rewarding than just having a quick story told to you, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

100% agree. I think it's uh well, Harry Potter's a cultural experience, you know. You um and that was before I I mean when that came out, that's before the the digital craze and all that. People were all reading that book, and and you know, millions and millions and millions of people are reading that book. And I still read Harry Potter all the time. I just love that story because I can of the characters, the connection. Um, and yeah, I read so we talked about doing voices. I I my wife and I would read that book together when we were first married, and I would do the voices when I would read the the books, and and we were in a butt a basement apartment, and our upstairs apart uh neighbor couldn't stand it. She would hear me doing voices at 11 o'clock at night, and she'd pound on the on the floor and it was too loud, and I would pound back. And her name was Lucia, so I call her Lucius, like Lucius Malfoy. Uh, I don't think she's passed away, but she was a very nice lady. She loved my wife. She did not like me very much because I was kind of obnoxious, you know, 20 something years ago when I that's good.

SPEAKER_03:

That is good. Yeah, the were you doing the your own iterations of the voice or like the Jim Dale versions of the voice?

SPEAKER_01:

Because those are Yeah, I wish I could do Jim Dale. Jim Dale's phenomenal. Uh yeah, or Stephen Fry, those guys do amazing voices, but uh no, mine were just you know, Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, good. I mean, I like I said, like we said, uh no authors do their own voices. Jonathan's drop would disapprove of us doing this. It's very British, very I need to meet Jonathan.

SPEAKER_01:

I need to meet Jonathan. You need to hook me up. I'll teach him the ways of uh doing yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

He's he's very funny. It just that so I was building a rapport with him and we were talking, and I was very surprised when he said, No, I don't, I don't, I don't do that. And I was like, Oh, of course you don't. You already have the British voice, so why would you be doing voice voice?

SPEAKER_01:

And he's super successful, so it's like, okay, maybe that's the key. If you have voices, I'm not as successful as Jonathan Stroud because his voice are amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. What can teachers and parents do to help inspire a love of reading in young children? You said you have three kids, but they're basically almost all your youngest is 17 right now.

SPEAKER_01:

17, yeah. She's a senior, and so she's almost done. Um yeah, it's difficult because it I'm an author and I'm surrounded by books, and I work at a bookstore. I'm surrounded by books all my life. Uh, everywhere I go, uh, if you go into my, I mean you look at my office, there's just books and weird knickknacks and Harry Potter stuff, and just uh all around. And for the longest time, my kids weren't great readers. And it's because uh they were so they they knew how to do it, and they were they were very intelligent, but it wasn't entertaining for them. Um, and my daughter was she was one that just never wanted to read. And then she found her book, she found the books that she loved, and then I think last year she read a hundred novels. She outreads all of us. So I think a lot of times it for educators and librarians and teachers, it's it's not giving up if they don't love or fall in love with the books that you're providing them, it's just providing an avenue or a way for them to find something that they do like. You know, I think Die of a Wimpy Kid is one of the most amazing book series out there because it we call it, I call it a gateway book. If you can fall in love with that story, which is not hard to do, you read Die of a Wimpy Kid, it's amazing, so funny. And then all of a sudden they're they read that and they read like 20 of those books, and then they find something else that maybe has a little some some illustrations, and then soon they're reading novels uh because they they found what they like and they what they enjoy. Um, so my daughter just had to find what she enjoyed. And then my oldest son, Jackson, he's 23, he's written, I think, three novels now. He's writing books. I I didn't know that he was going to be a writer, and uh he's doing very, very well with that. Learn that his own starting his own journey, and he's he's really good. He's really good at writing.

SPEAKER_03:

So he is he's going to submit the novels to when you're starting.

SPEAKER_01:

He's starting that process. He's starting the process of trying to find an agent, which is very difficult. It's uh and uh I think he's he's self-published. Uh he did the indie route with a book, just like a short novella, and he's writing all the time. So I'm excited to see where he goes with it and help him out when I can if he listens to dad.

SPEAKER_03:

If uh that's a big if, but yeah, boys don't typically listen to dad until until they get much older. Yeah, yeah. And somebody said he was smart. I I had a yeah, it was that's the Mark Twain quote. The um I was when I was a kid, I thought my dad was an idiot, and then 20 years went by and I was astounded at how much he had learned in the topic three. Something I mean, I butchered the quote, but it's I was astounded by how much he had learned. Um, what advice would you give to uh aspiring authors who are struggling to either finish or publish their book?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, uh it's I think there's a lot of uh ways to become a published author nowadays. I think there, I mean, the I've known several independent authors that are very successful and their books are amazing and they found their their circle and they're able to sell their books and be successful. Um, but because there's so many different ways to do it, uh, I think a lot of times rejection is we don't want to be rejected at all. We don't ever want to feel rejection. And I think rejection's okay. It's okay to be rejected, developing a little bit of thick skin. Not not just if your dream is to be a traditionally published author, which it doesn't have to be that, uh uh that those first couple of rejections do not define you, do not that doesn't mean that you're not gonna make it. Um so I think a lot of times some authors say, ah, I'll just self-publish, which is great because you could be very successful. Um, but it's also that's a different, that's a different game altogether. That I I've tried to take a stab at that, and I'm not successful at doing that at all. I I I don't know how to do that. Um, but I think developing some thick skin, uh receiving that rejection and realizing that it doesn't define you, you can still keep at it and work on your craft. Also, I think agents and editors are people. We talked about Shadow Mountain and how I'm really good friends with all them and I and I love them, they're fantastic, and they're editors. And a lot of times we put editors and agents on this pedestal where we're like, oh gosh, they're just so important, and I'm not important. They're just people. They want to make a connection with uh an author, and if they if they like you and they want to work with you, they'll find ways to work with you. And I I think that's what's happened with Shadow Mound. I hope they haven't they haven't gotten rid of me yet. We'll see after this next book I turn in. Um, but but they I we get along and they they know my writing style and and we connect. And even though it may not be the book they're looking for, it's not like we're moving on, we don't want to work with you anymore. It's more like okay, well, what else do you got?

SPEAKER_03:

So finishing a book is is one question that's I mean there's a lot of ways in which sometimes sometimes just finishing a book requires more time, it's just a a period of gestation, it just needs more time for you to mature as a as a person. But in terms of publishing a book, I think the most successful thing is networking, just going to conferences, meeting people, talking to people. That's it, you know, and who you know, in a way.

SPEAKER_01:

It is. That's I think that's how I got my start. Um, I was at a writing conference and I met James Dashner, uh, incredibly successful author with the Maze Runner series, and he introduced me to Cedar Fort, who was his first publisher. And I think because of that introduction, they were like, Yeah, well, we'll take a look at your book because you met us and you you have a connection. And that book wasn't published, but it ended up being the start of you know my writing journey and my first seven books. And then I did something. Uh, I I remember I think Chris will probably remember this, maybe not, but I was on stage for a book launch for another author, J. Scott Savage. So Jeff Savage, um, very successful author with middle grade, and he was doing a book launch and he asked me to be on the stage. And I had dressed up in a green morph suit with aluminum foil with a big bucket of steam, and I made a fool of myself on the stage. And uh Chris Schobinger came out and says, I really want to do a book with you. And I think that was the start of the relationship was me being an idiot on the stage. And so I owe that I have I should find that picture somewhere, but that's the picture of me on the stage that got me at least an audience with Chris Schobinger. I think I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

I started to write a book that he liked, but now we got a whole host of other follow-up questions about what kind of conference was this, and and what kind of person is Chris if he wants to publish he's like this guy right here dressed up. I want I want what he's putting next to us.

SPEAKER_02:

If it was like uh if it was like serious like self-help or non-fiction books, it wouldn't have been, but it's like, oh, he's a middle grade author. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that makes that makes a lot more sense. Um, so how would you define success as an author? I mean, I there was a joke earlier about uh this, you know, one of the authors that said I was paying taxes on it, and that's what was my success. But for you, day in, day out, writing and publishing, how would you define successful writing?

SPEAKER_01:

Um gosh, you know, I I I do have all my books on a shelf, and so I can see them. I think creating stories, connecting with readers. Um you know, that to me is successful. It's hard. It's very hard to look at my own career and say that was successful because I'll tell you, um a lot of times you look at every one of my books and I might have thought it was a success, but maybe the publisher did not. Maybe the publisher had expectations that this book was going to sell so many copies and it didn't. So even though it may have sold more than I would have thought it would have, it was not a success. I I I look at all my 15 books that have been put out in the world, and maybe one or two of them would be deemed as a success by the publisher. And that's difficult when you look at that and you're like, okay, that's really hard when even the publisher's like, yeah, that was a bomb. That that tanked. They would never say that. Well, they might, it depends on the publisher. They might say it to you. I I actually I think I have it had that set to me not by Shadow Mountain. Um so it's it's hard to determine what is successful, but I think the fact that you're still creating stories and and you're still in the game and and and you're still writing, uh, even if it's not published, you're you're creating a story that you love and someone reads it and they they enjoy it. I think that's the success of it. But it's for someone else, you know, taking a moment to step back and looking at what you have accomplished. So maybe you've written five books and none of them are actually published, but you wrote five books. You wrote five stories that are out in the world that are that someone's gonna be able to find one day, and that's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, to that end, have uh have any readers or a reader have they shared a message with you that was inspiring or moved you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've had a couple. Uh I had one that was uh unexpected. I was at a book signing probably two years ago, maybe yeah, about a year and a half, two years ago. And uh there was another author there that's uh I was next to Brandon Mole. So Brandon Mole is super successful. Uh he's an amazing guy, he's a really good friend of mine. And he, of course, he's got lines, and I didn't have any line. I had a couple people come up, and then one lady came up, and this is kind of a sad story, but she said it was one of my first books, the the Hash Brown winner series. This one came out a long time ago. And her son was going through, he was very ill, and she gave him these books, and he they brought him a lot of joy until he passed away. And so she so she came to get a one of the books signed, and I was like, I didn't realize he had passed away. I was like, Oh, so what's his name? And she's and she said, Well, he actually did pass away about a year ago, and and that just kind of crushed me, but at the same time, they said we just wanted to meet you because you brought him a lot of joy during this last phase of his life, and that I was like, that tore me apart because you know, the whole time I'm thinking, This is dumb, no one's here, why am I even here? You know, I couldn't be doing anything else on a a Thursday night, and no one's here to see me, no one cares. And then this person came through and it just kind of put gave me perspective of, you know, so that was awesome and devastating at the same time, but uh yeah, pretty, pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03:

I just think it's important that we share the best stories that we know, uh and that ultimately, even if you're not a writer, um, you are writing the story of your own life and just believe a good story, believe, believe in the literal journey of your life that you can go on and do good things. And so, as people read your stories, whatever walk of life that they are in, what is it that you hope they come away with? What are some of the themes that you you know really try to bring home uh in in your writing?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a good question. Um, you know, I I usually all my stories have have friendship uh in them. Uh, you know, either characters that have this group of friends, like the Hash Brown winner series. I keep going back to it. It's my it's my first book, but um uh, you know, it's an collected group of friends that accept everybody. It they're all accepting of everybody. I remember one time there was a librarian that gave me a review, and she didn't, I don't think she liked the very first book of Hash Brown. And then by the end, she's like, I've really grown to love these characters because they just accept everybody. And they're it doesn't matter what this kid looks like, what this kid's background is, you know, what they've done. You know, there's a kid in the series that has a he wets his pants a lot, so he's wearing a diaper, and they're still best friends with him. It's fine, that's okay. They they don't they don't judge him for that. And I really I res I really love that that that quote from her because I'm like, yeah, I kind of think my stories always have good versus evil. Um, and uh there's always like somewhat of a hero's journey where a kid has to figure out what who he really is and what he can really do or what she can really do. Um and then overcoming obstacles. I I but I think friendship is there's always this element where working together, um I don't know, I think that's a big theme in my stories. I think uh I I love weird stuff. Like I, you know, you talked about Sasquatch and ghosts and all I love anything weird, and I love trying to take a weird idea and make it feel it's normal. That's fine. That's I was telling that to my son recently. I'm like, take something weird and make it feel like that's just normal in your story. Um, and I think embracing the weird is important. I think if we can embrace the weird and and look at things differently, then we're happier people, anyways.

SPEAKER_03:

So that I think that's gonna be the title of this episode Embrace the Weird. I like that. Embrace the Weird. I love it. Embrace the Weird. Well, where can people follow you and support what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so I'm on all those social medias. I I usually, if you see me on social media, if you find one of my videos, they're not worth they're not, they're just lip-syncing videos.

SPEAKER_03:

I I watched a couple of them in uh preparing for this interview that I think I just got your most recent one. That was good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Uh I was asked one time, like, hey, you need to have a social media presence. And I'm like, I don't know what to do with that. I mean, I was on Facebook and I would, you know, make comments or stuff, post pictures, and and then uh they're like, yeah, you should probably get on TikTok and Instagram. And so I'm like, I don't know what to do. I tried to do writing advice, no one cared, no one listened. So then I did a lip syncing video, and that actually was kind of fun. And so I've been doing it now for the past two or three years. I will post uh, you know, things, upcoming things that are going on, and occasionally writing tips and whatnot on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me. Uh, I think it's Frank El Cole or Frank Cole Rights. Um, that's usually my website's Franc ColeRights.com. Um, but that's where you can find me. And then uh occasionally I'll do events. I've got some events coming up, uh StoryCon and and Story Makers, those type of conferences, I'll be there.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, yeah, and then if if you're talking about not making a deadline, just hope that your editor or publisher doesn't look at your account and see all the videos you're making.

SPEAKER_01:

I think they do, and I think they're like, stop making these videos, you might be able to write your book. And I'm like, well, you told me to be on social media.