Author Interview: Dean Johnston

How would you describe the type of books/genre you write?

They are all travel books with the exception of a short book I put together about the Euro 2016 soccer championships. No fiction as of yet, although that may be next on the agenda. My first book, Random Acts of Travel: Featuring Trepidation, Hammocks and Spitting, almost felt like it forced itself on me. After years of blogging about our travels, at a certain point it just felt crazy not to compile some of these stories and adventures into a real book.

After that, I wrote a book about our experience hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, Behind the Albergue Door, and my latest details my picks for the best trips in the world. Which isn’t really an exact science but no one has ever accused me of being short on opinions.

What motivated you to start writing?

Necessity, in a way. My first foray into travel writing was after my wife and I embarked on our first lengthy trip way back in 2000. Thanks to this wonderful new innovation called “email”, all our family and friends were unfortunately aware of just how easy it was for us to keep in touch and provide periodic updates. Before email came along worried parents just had to sit around hoping for the best, and that maybe, at some point, their ungrateful backpacking offspring might go to the trouble of organizing an international call home using one of those extremely grim booths that used to be all over the place. But those days were gone, and I started sending email updates home every week or so, begrudgingly at first, then as time went on, and the stories became more and more fun to tell, I realized I was actually enjoying writing about them. Since then I’ve continued to write more and more all the time, to the point that I’m sure my family and friends now wish they could somehow stuff that genie back into the bottle.

Tell us the journey you went on to get your books published (e.g. direct on your website, self-published, assisted-publishing, traditional publisher)

I wrote Random Acts of Travel without any clear idea of what I would do with it once I was finished. It was only after I was done that I finally started to research publishing and marketing and all those fun things, and I soon began to see just how big a part of the process I had ignored to that point. I sent out some query emails and contacted some publishers that specialize in travel content, which seemed like a fair bit of work and more than enough networking to find someone who would realize what a budding genius writer they had on their hands.

In hindsight, however, I see that what felt like a lot of work at the time was really just the barest sliver of the time and effort it takes most people to get published. Anyway, needless to say, no busy publisher with hundreds of unread books in their inbox had their assistant read three lines of my book and say “Stop everything, we’ve got the next Bill Bryson on our hands!” Or maybe they did and their generous book deal offer ended up in my junk folder, I suppose we’ll never know for sure. But either way, after a few rejections and a lot of no replies, I quickly became discouraged and immediately moved on to learning about all the burgeoning new tools in self-publishing. And that is the route I’ve stayed on ever since.

What publishing elements do you most enjoy and most like to avoid, and why? (e.g. design, marketing, formatting etc.)

Theoretically, I really enjoy being creative when it comes to design and format. I strongly believe in the idea that e-books don’t have to just be exact digital replicas of a physical book, but instead allow the author a lot of freedom to tweak formats and appearance. In practice, however, I simply don’t have the technical ability to diverge from the usual methods at this point. At least not without making the whole thing really difficult to read. It doesn’t help, either, that an e-book needs to be accessible on a wide variety of devices. What may look really cool and innovative on an iPad might be a serious problem on a 5-year old Kobo. Nobody needs enough time for a bathroom break between page turns.

With the hindsight of being a published author, anything you would have done differently?

Overall, I am fairly happy with the way things have gone. I don’t sell a lot of books in the grand scheme, although what “a lot” is all depends on what you choose as the standard. I’ve sold a lot more than many similar books in my genres, and more than I truly expected to when I started writing. On the other hand, I’d have to say my sales numbers are a little weak compared to Eat Pray Love. I do wonder, however, what the results may have been had I invested more in sales and marketing.

What tips or advice would you give an aspiring indie author who is looking to self-publish?

Personally, I think it is important to keep the writing separate from all the other technical stuff. I find I can sometimes get a little overwhelmed by all the logistics involved with formatting, uploading, pricing, marketing, etc., and this can have a negative impact on my enjoyment of the whole process. And if you let the frustration deter you from actually writing, well, that kind of defeats the purpose.

So I would say to remember that when you are writing, focus completely on the writing as much as possible.

You can deal with the rest of that stuff once you have a quality book to work with. Or you can hire professionals to deal with it for you.

What marketing or promotional tools or techniques do you use to reach your readers?

I’ve tried numerous small things, such as short-term discounts, Goodreads promotions, and joining book clubs. But, for the most part, my promoting has been limited to social media within my personal sphere of influence. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, that sort of thing.

What impact do you want your books to have on your readers?

If someone reads one of my books I sincerely hope it will increase their desire to travel. It’s not as though I only say good things about our travel experiences, far from it, but on the whole I think my writing makes it clear how much I love the amazing variety and excitement of travel – good, bad and, you know, ugly. For all the jokes I make at the expense of people and places and destinations and ourselves, and my personal hygiene in particular, I hope that my readers still feel that all those things are just details on top of my underlying love of travel.

What is your latest book about?

Well, it’s called Roam: The 9 Greatest Trips on Earth, so I think the title is pretty suggestive, not to mention probably just a bit grandiose. But when people find out how much we have travelled, particularly over the last ten years since we quit our regular jobs, they always want to know the places we think are the best. Our favourite this, the most unforgettable that. It just seemed like it was time to put together a formal list and try to end all the speculation once and for all. Well, until the next trip, at least. Of course, now I feel sort of obligated to stay true to the book when I answer people, unlike before when my replies tended to change depending on my mood at the time, or how much I happened to be craving pad thai at that particular moment.

What’s next on your writing journey?

A novel? Maybe. I’ve had a lot of ideas rattling around in my head for years now and I’ve recently starting putting them together in a (slightly) more coherent form. Travel writing, mine at least, tends to be somewhat disjointed – an amalgamation of stories, ideas and topics that follow a common theme, but can generally be written as separate, stand-alone sections. Novels – most good novels, anyway – are tied together as a cohesive unit from page one right through to the end. I’m actually very curious to see if I have the focus and perseverance to effectively put together an entire work of fiction. On the plus side, I definitely like the idea of just making things up.

About the Author

Dean Johnston used to be a financial planner until he and his wife quit their jobs back in 2008 and now spend eight months of each year traveling the world. He is the author of three travel books, including the recently published Roam: The 9 Greatest Trips on Earth, and documents all his travels at routinelynomadic.com

• Instagram: @routinelynomadic
• Twitter: @dinojay2

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