Robert Kiyosaki The Business of the 21st century Audio book -

Welcome to this very special edition of the KJ Masterclass Live, the show which ensures that you profit from your time spent here with experts either through their industry insights, information or simply learning from them. And today we have with us at a mills he writes romantic suspense novels where modern must mysteries collide with forbidden relationships and the pressures of small town life. His debut novel The Dead Don't Talk has earned over 100 reviews with a 4.6 star average and his stories explore what happens when truth, love and social boundaries are pushed to the limit. The Dead Don't Talk is the first in the four book Patrick Stone series. So we'll explore with him how to tap how you can tap into your own creativity, his own creative process and also what it takes to write a full series instead of just one book and the hardest lessons learned along the way. Welcome to the show Adam. Thank you Ajay, I appreciate you having me here today. Thank you. You're welcome, welcome to the show, welcome to India in this online form Adam and I'm sure not just in India but a lot of people across the lot of writers, butting right across the globe will benefit from what we are going to talk right now. We'll learn from you about how one can write a series and much more. But before that let's talk a bit about your journey, your background, your story so that the audience knows who they are listening to. Great. Thank you Ajay. I would say fundamentally as a person if you had to describe me in one word it would be a writer. I've been writing fiction since I was a child, probably eight or nine years old and I've always really loved to write. But I have lived in a small town when I was a child and a teenager. I live in a small town in Tennessee now. I lived in large cities, larger cities for a few decades. I lived in Nashville, Tennessee and I also lived in Mexico City for three years. So I'm familiar with the small town aspect of a backdrop of a story. That's what most of my work focuses on and I'm really excited to continue that work. Absolutely. So what is your work about? Who do you write for? Why do you write for? Tell us a bit about that so that the audience can understand what is it that you know Adam Mills is all about. Well, I think I started out writing for myself. I think that was who I was writing for and writing for an audience came later. So I think it's important to note that when I was starting to write the Patrick Stone series, it didn't start out as a series. I know that's we're going to talk about today. I was in a coffee shop in Mexico City. It was a nice day. I had a spiral notebook. That spiral notebook I sat down and I said, I need to write a novel. I don't know what it's going to be about. I started writing and the idea of the characters came to me, the idea of the backdrop came to me. It was only in writing the manuscript later that I was able to fill in the details. That's important to note as well. Absolutely, absolutely. But writing a series and that to you know, it's not a easy thing. What made you think that this is something that you would want to continue? And if I understand it, the dead don't talk is the first in the four book Patrick Stone series. That is correct. I didn't start out wanting it to be a series. I just started out wanting to write a novel. I wrote the novel, the first the dead don't talk at the end of 2022. We're coming out of the pandemic. And I put it out on Amazon and nothing really happened. And then I started thinking a few years later, maybe early to mid 2024, that I wanted to write some more books in the series. So I decided there was more story to tell. I'd left some open ends in the first book. So I started exploring those. And it was in taking those open ends that I was able to create more books, create more open ends and eventually close the whole thing at the end of the fourth book. Absolutely. So what was the biggest skill that you had in terms of you know, writing a series like this? What was it that you strongly relied upon? Did you have any creative process? Any books before that? Is something I've always used in my creative process. I write a book, a series, a story, whatever, anything like that. I generally start with a spiral notebook in a pen. I write long form. I generally don't know what I'm going to write about. And then as an interesting kind of mysterious process, I found that with taking my pen and writing across the page, that's where ideas will come to me. We can argue that that's some sort of mystical spiritual thing that happens. We can argue that something in my subconscious, we can even argue that just the act of moving the pen across the page creates some sort of chemical or electrical impulses in my brain. But I've always noticed that to answer your question about skill, I think the openness, the willingness to be receptive to whatever comes in that beginning stage process, writing in that notebook is very important. Of course, it's important to have experience reading. Of course, it's important to have experience writing other things. I think if I choose one thing that's very, very important to the creative process, it's receptiveness to things that we don't understand. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, why mix modern mystery with romantic relationships? It could be just one simple way. What is it that you were hoping to achieve with your writing? Activism or something or modern mystery or just romantic relationships? When I first started writing the Dead Don't Talk, it was just going to be a murder mystery. It was not going to explore relationships and it was not going to explore it in this case, an interracial relationship between two teenagers in a small town. I had no intention of exploring that whatsoever. I realized eventually the relationship was going to come up, but even when I realized that there was going to be a relationship, I didn't realize that the relationship was going to be between a white teenager and an African American girl. It's an interesting story. I was trying to think of how I was going to market the book at the time of the book. I was on a stock photos site. I was looking for images of who these characters could be. Patrick is one of them. Wendy was his girlfriend, the various people that came up in the series and then the book at the time. As I was looking for pictures of Wendy, I noticed that a lot of African American models came up, female African American models. I realized that was part of the receptivity I was telling you about earlier. This is what's happening. Wendy is African American. This is an interrelational relationship and this is part of the story and a fundamental part of the story. It wasn't so much that I decided that this was going to be not a statement, but an exploration of these themes. It was discovery. I discovered it was going to be an exploration of important themes. I had to be receptive to that. I had to explore that and I'm very glad I was able to do that. Absolutely. How challenging was bringing those characters to life that were in your mind? Was it easy? Was it very difficult? That was 2022 if I understand. Yes. Yes. It was challenging in ways that I wasn't expecting. As a person, a man of not a man of color, I felt like I was tasked or I tasked myself with writing characters of color. That was the most challenging thing I could do. I have had people tell me, even people who didn't read the book, that I had no right to write characters that I was not fundamentally familiar with at a personal level. I think that was the challenge. I think approaching this was sensitivity with compassion, with some research and trying to convey a character in a way that was somewhat accurate from what I was. I could tell that was the true challenge. I hope I did that. - 2022 politics was different. 2026 politics is different. - Would you have written the same book even in 2026? - That is a fantastic question. The answer is, I'll have to explore that as I answer it because I'm really not sure. Things are different, especially in the United States and around the world in 2026, things are very, very different. What I've written the same book, I don't know. I will say this. I was telling you about the spiral notebook. I was telling you about the receptive process. That's what came to me at that time. Would something similar have come to me now? I don't know because I'm not sure. What I've wanted to write something like that in 2026, maybe I think there are other themes that are more pressing right now. But this is also a very pressing theme. When you're talking about issues of race in the United States, we have a very ugly history of race in the United States. When we're talking about issues of small town politics and things like that, these things still are relevant, but I don't know that I would have written the same book in this exact time frame. - Absolutely. But when 2022, as we talk about, you know, we talk about race, politics, and culture. That point in time, it was important. In 2026, it's perhaps even more important to understand it. How do you want people to understand these things in today's time? When there is so much of toxicity, politics, and noise around these things? - Well, to answer that question, that's a fantastic, fabulous question that I've been asked a few times. Regarding a statement, what do I want people to take away from the book? What do I want people to understand from the book? I want to humbly clarify that I'm not trying to make a statement about someone else's lived experience. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to open a space of exploration. That's what I've tried to do with the book. And I opened it really, to going back to your first question of who I write for, I was trying to open the exploration for myself. I was trying to explore these themes myself. When my readers take the books, what I'm hoping they'll take away from the books, what I'm hoping they will understand is exploration. I hope they will open their own space for exploration of themes that are important in race, in relationships and small towns. I hope it's exploration that I would want to take away from this. - Absolutely. When you write a book like this, novel like this, what about your creativity? Do you think you have met the aims of your creativity or you think your responsibility is first towards the society and write stories around that and creativity can either be, it's very good if it comes along with that or maybe in something else it will reflect? - My responsibility when I wrote this book was to myself first and foremost at that time, late 2022, at that time, I'm gonna specify that. As time moved on, and I realized that more people were reading the book and they were reviewing it and there were people who had opinions about it. I realized that a book is very much like, a child in many ways, you raise a child, you want them to be certain things, but when they grow up, you can't really do anything about it. They just go out and they do what they want. So my responsibility later became to let the book be interpreted by the readers in the way that it was going to be. So I guess by extension, my responsibility is to my readers now and that's how I view my creative process. Creativity, am I responsible? Am I trying to think, do I have responsibility to my creativity, do I have responsibility to my reader or to myself, I think first and foremost, it's to my reader, I have to give them something that they can take something away from my work. - What about marketing versus creativity? How have you managed that balanced part? - That is a fabulous question and I am still learning, I'm still a student. So when I first started to saying, I've got this series, it's been out for some time, it's getting some traction, but not as much as I would like. I decided I needed to focus on marketing, as you said. So I started running advertisements on the platforms where this book is available. I started, I'm doing podcasts like this. I am trying to have a TikTok channel. I'm trying to talk about the book in general. Marketing is an art sort of science, and yet it is a science because there's some data science involved in it, but it's still an art. It's another creative process. I'm still learning, as I said, and I've got a lot to learn still. - Absolutely. Anything that you would want to share with those learnings for those who are thinking of writing or marketing their book, Adam? - Yes, I would say, don't be a, if there are people who've written books, written series, written material, or put anything out that they want, other people to consume, don't be afraid to talk about it. Some people are very modest about their work. I've run across a lot of writers who will polish, revise, edit forever, and they'll never actually put their work out there. They'll never actually let the market test it. I'm sure you've run across people like that too, maybe. And I think it's important to, at some point, say, this book may never truly be finished. It may never be exactly what I want it to be. It may never be perfect. But I'm going to put it out there. I'm going to let people judge it and go on to my next one. Because if we don't do that, no one ever reads our work, no one ever consumes our content, no one ever learns from us, and that doesn't do anyone any good. - Absolutely. So while marketing this book now, how do you market it? Do you talk about that it is more relevant in today's time that people must read it book? What is the USB that you bring out for a book which already has got 100 reviews with a 4.6 star average? - So my platform, my message is this book was relevant in 2022. It's still relevant today. I won't say it's completely timeless, but I will say it's bound in the time of this era right now. And to your question, why now, I realized if I wanted to write another series, that would be fine, but that's shirking my responsibility as a writer. If I'm going to write, and I'm going to write for an audience, and I want people to read my work, then I need to make sure that people read my work, that they can find it, that they have access to it, that it's available in some format that they can consume. So that was a realization that came to me over the last few months. I decided I was going to try to get people to be interested in reading it, be interested in the themes, be interested in the exploration. And so that's why it came to me now. For the first year and a half after I put out the last book, which would have been, let's say early to mid 2024, I finished the last book, not a lot of traction came out. I realized that's not doing justice to my readers. It's not doing justice to myself. I need to be able to put the books out there in a way that they can be found to consume. And that's why I started marketing recently. - Absolutely. So what about the other three books in the series? What are their names where are they in this whole, how do people get hold of that? - Sure. So the three books in the series, I'll back up a little bit and say each book, focuses on a different crime that the teenage detective, let's say Patrick, is trying to solve. The first book of course, The Dead Don't Talk is a murder mystery that has interwoven these other themes that you've talked about, though you and I've talked about. The second book is called The Past Don't Fade. And it is about a theft. It's very heavily, it very heavily explores themes of race in the United States. And in some ways, I've gotten some criticism for it. The third book is called Angels Don't Burn. And it explores in Arson. The fourth book is called Lies Don't Disseve. And this is where all the questions that came up in the previous three books are suddenly answered. So Patrick has a confrontation with his mother. His mother keeps coming up when these books, we don't know where she is until the fourth book. And then he has kind of an existential crisis because of his confrontation with his mother, which is unless you've read the books, you may not be familiar with. But I will say that combination, that confrontation is what makes the books, I think, worth reading because in addition to Patrick and the readers and everyone exploring themes of race and what it means in this country in the United States, I should say. It also explores who passed away. Patrick is as a person because we do care about him as a character and this is something that I think readers will really appreciate if they do come to read the books. So what about what what next now? Four books you have already done. Anything more in this series or something else because you are very young. It cannot be just the four book series. There has to be many, many more from author Adam Mills. Well, I'm not going to say I won't write any more books in the series but officially the series is finished. That said, I reserve the right to write more books in the series. You're right. I would like to write more books. I do have plans, tentative plans to write under the series. I'm in the process of collecting information. I'm in the process of engaging with readers to some extent trying to figure out what they liked in the series, what they didn't, what they would want to see more up. So I would say I'm a few months out from starting a new major project like this. I'd certainly be open to a lot more feedback to see what people really resonated with, what they did and what they'd like to see more of. Absolutely. As an author Adam, during these times of artificial intelligence, you know, generative AI so much of so many options are there. What would you like to tell, you know, people youngsters, those who want to write about exploring their own creativity in terms of, you know, being authentic and still writing something that, you know, that the audience loves. Well, a couple of things read a lot, write, try, practicing writing definitely, but it's your question and to your point about AI. There are books out there that are written by AI that are assisted by AI that are translated by AI even. And I would say to people that in at this time in mid 2026, we are not some, we are not to the point where AI can write a book like a human being can may seem that way, the readers was spotted immediately. So also to your point about authenticity, definitely try to be authentic, write your own work. I'm not saying it's not good to use AI for developing ideas for exploring different paths you can take. That may be a good use of AI right now, but to write your whole book that would be in authentic right now. I hope that people who are interested in exploring writing series or books or stories, whatever will do their own work. And that's that's a theme that's going to be very important, I think moving forward, especially now that we're exploring and trying to figure out what AI is going to mean for us as in lots of different areas, not just in writing. But, in every case, you know, writing is that is that may not be possible. Can you survive as a full time author writing such books? Or it has to be just one more revenue stream for someone who is looking at it from that point in time. There are some people I believe who survive as writers, there are some people who do very well as writers, there are some people who have an extra revenue stream as writers that they are happy to have. There's some people who make no money writing. There's it's all across the spectrum. I would say to most people, if you want to start writing and maybe even you've written the book, don't quit your day job. I have not quit my day job. But that may come at a point. It may if you if you market it well, if you write a good book, if you really do the things you're supposed to do to make sustainability as an author a reality for yourself. It is possible. I believe I believe it's possible. I know people who have done it, but it takes time. It probably takes significantly more time than any of us really think so it's possible. So, um, density question. Yes, you can be sustainable as a writer. Is it going to happen immediately? No. Is it definitely going to happen? No. Is it possibly going to happen? Yes. Absolutely. In a nutshell, what would you like to tell readers about your series and invite them to you know to have a look at that? The series can be read on different levels. So the people who like murder mysteries can read it as a murder mystery. People who like murder mysteries mixed with romance can read it on that level. People who want to read something more activist, more more focused on political realities, at least in United States. In this time and time and time in history will also enjoy it. But I want to say the one thing I would say to people who want to read my series is it is as I said earlier about exploration. So I hope that I'm not trying to make a statement or say anything. I'm trying to explore myself and I hope my readers will take exploration as the one thing that that they can take from the book. Absolutely. Absolutely. There is so much to learn about all this from you and I'm sure a lot of people would want to connect with you want to get your books. What's the best way for them to do so? Yes. So I am sparsely online. I don't have Facebook. I don't do a lot of that. To be honest, I do have a TikTok channel that I'm starting. It's author Adam Mills. Author Adam Mills. And then of course I'd be honored and humbled if anyone would check out my books. You can find them on Amazon under the name Adam Mills, the Patrick Stone series. And of course the first book is called The Dead Don't Talk by Adam Mills. Wonderful. With this, it's set up on this very special edition of the Kajama Chaklas like. Thank you so much indeed for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. [Music]