I was lucky to get an interview with Joseph John Lee, the author of The Bleeding Stone, and a semifinalist in this year’s #SPFBO9.

Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
Hi! My name is Joe and I’m an American fantasy and science fiction author living and working in Boston. I’m the author of The Spellbinders and the Gunslingers trilogy, the first two books of which (The Bleeding Stone & The Children of the Black Moon) have been released already, with a third to follow in Spring 2024. I’ve been writing creatively since 2018, and prior to that, my writing was far more research-focused while I pursued a career in academia. Needless to say, the creative writing was much more fulfilling.

Why should I buy your SPFBO9 entry?
The Bleeding Stone started as a way for me to vent some frustrations over how history is taught in the United States, specifically with regards to colonial America and the subjugation and erasure of indigenous tribes by European settlers. It’s both a reflection and rejection of the notion of “history being written by the victors,” so if you’d like to check out a tragic tale of colonization and imperialism, but told from the indigenous perspective, then this may be the one for you!

What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I suppose I’ve always had something of a creative gene, even when I was a kid typing out random things that made little to no sense. As a teen, I started writing out full-fledged plotlines that were horribly constructed and had dialogue lifted from whatever video game I was playing at the time. To be fair, I still include allusions to certain video game lines of dialogue – they’re just far better implemented now.

It was around 2018 when I began to pursue creative writing. For about eight years prior to that, much of my writing had been academically focused while I was at university. I had my heart set on entering academia and wound up with a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees in history, but midway through my second master’s program I suffered from severe burnout and the passion toward that sort of writing was gone.

Later that year, Tor.com had an open call for novella submissions, so I wound up sitting down and found that spark for writing again. It was a prequel to a larger work that I had been loosely thinking about since I was in high school, though I’ve since tabled that project for the time being.

The novella submission was ultimately not picked up by Tor, but it was still an eye-opening moment for me and it helped me realize just what I wanted to do after abandoning my academic pursuits. I haven’t looked back and I’m much happier for it!

Have you participated in the SPFBO before and where did you hear about the competition?
This is my first SPFBO. The Bleeding Stone is my debut novel, and I was excited for it to be part of the festivities this year.

I first heard about SPFBO in around 2020 or so. Among the first self-published fantasy novels I’d ever bought were Never Die by Rob J. Hayes and The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang. When I was reading up on those authors, I saw SPFBO mentioned in connection to both of them – and that they were both previous winners. I loosely followed it for a couple years after that but it wasn’t until getting further ingrained in the indie community last year that I started to pay closer attention to it. It also helped that one of the Discord servers I perused had two of last year’s finalists as active members (Trudie Skies and Thiago Abdalla).

Why did you choose to write fantasy?
Fantasy is perhaps the most liberating and adaptable genre in which to write. You’re not confined to real-world restrictions to craft the story you wish to tell, and whenever you have the liberty to include some sort of magic to color an already-intriguing world, it makes it all the more fun to tell your story.

The Bleeding Stone – and the Spellbinders series as a whole – rests within historical fantasy, with some elements of dark fantasy and western thrown in. It allowed me to create this Age of Exploration/colonial America parallel without needing it to be an accurate historical representation while also being able to include subtle magic and animal-based deities.

Which other author has had the biggest influence on your writing?
John Gwynne was one of the authors who helped me get back into reading for fun, and his work has also served as a big influence for me, especially with regards to his approach to epic battle sequences. I’ve also drawn influence from Joe Abercrombie for his stellar character work and dialogue, and Brandon Sanderson for his world building.

If you were to win the SPFBO, what impact do you think this would have on your writing career?
At the time of writing I’ve already been cut, but I did get to be named a semi-finalist this year! It’s hard to say right now what kind of impact there will be, but I’m happy to know that there have been that many more eyes on The Bleeding Stone that weren’t there previously. Getting cut from SPFBO is hardly the end of the journey, and the connections and friendships I’ve made through this competition are plenty of reward in and of itself.

What challenges did you face during the writing or publishing process, and how did you overcome them?
The actual writing process itself wasn’t terrible for me. In a way, it’s almost relaxing, and the only stress comes from the deadlines that I impose upon myself. The real challenge has been with the publishing process as a whole, because there are so many moving parts to line up, between editing, artwork, marketing, printing, making sure everything is absolutely perfect because you really only get one shot at a first impression. When I first started out last year, it was a bit of a lonely process because I didn’t know anybody in the community, and things wound up getting a bit rushed toward the end since I was dead-set on releasing The Bleeding Stone before Christmas, but my cover wasn’t done until about two weeks before my planned release date. It was a mad scramble that I wish wasn’t so stressful, but it was a tremendous learning experience that’s taught me how best to chart out the roadmap toward each book’s publication.

Do you have any tips or an author app, tool, or resource that you can really recommend we try?
A lot of these tips are things I’m still learning for myself, especially with regards to marketing and finding beta- or ARC-readers! The best resource I can recommend is, honestly, the community itself. Many of the resources I use as far as crafting my book – like Atticus for formatting or Inkarnate for map-making – are tools that I would not have been privy to had it not been for the connections I’ve made in the community. Reaching out or reading what everyone has to say is all too beneficial, and you should never feel yourself to be too above finding new methods to make the job less stressful.

And now it's time to yank out your Palantir! Let’s talk about the future. What new projects are you working on?
The third and final book in The Spellbinders and the Gunslingers trilogy will release in Spring 2024! I wrapped up the first draft of it at the beginning of September and my editor will be looking at it in November/December.

As far as future projects, I will be reworking an urban fantasy project that I had finished a manuscript for before I started work on the Spellbinders series. Overall I’m proud of it, but it still needs a lot of fine-tuning to get it into publishing shape – especially since I’ve learned a lot more about writing in the four years since I originally wrote it. You can think of it as a cross between Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and the Netflix series Sense8. I plan to release it toward the end of 2024.

I’m also in the early stages of charting out a MG/YA duology as something to write for my niece and nephew. It’ll be a much more light-hearted and whimsical story, a bit more Pratchett-esque in the approach. Mainly I needed something far less depressing to write after the heavy subject matter of Spellbinders, and this is the perfect palate cleanser.

Apps that are based on artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGTP and Midjourney, along with apps aimed specifically at authors, have caused quite a stir. Do you expect these new technologies will make your life as a self-published author easier or harder, and do you expect that they’ll mean you’ll earn more or less?
In the short term, AI will make things more challenging for authors, especially where we’re seeing certain publishers give deals to “authors” (using the term loosely since they’re not actually authors) who threw a prompt into ChatGPT and handed in whatever it farted out. It’s frustrating to be sure, especially when many of us work hard for years to not even get a second glance from publishers.

The extent to which it will impact authors in the long term is dependent upon the stances taken by not only publishers but also retailers like Amazon. We’re already seeing Amazon implement a self-attestation as to whether a submitted work was AI-generated, which is a small step, but given AI works are not copyrightable, I can only hope that the long term will bode well for all us who actually put the time and effort into honing our craft versus those who can’t be bothered at all and are just looking for a quick buck.

Do you have any dreams you’d like to share?
Honestly, at the moment, my measure of success is to be able to make enough per month just from my writing to use that money to pay my student loans every month. There’s a long ways to go to even sniff that amount, so if anyone wants to be my Bigolas Dickolas and help a brother out, that’d be pretty sweet.

Anything else you would like to say before we close?
Thanks for having me, Rune! And thank you to everyone who’s given my books a try. As long as you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them.

Thank you for participating, Joe! I wish you the very best in the SPFBO. I hope a lot of readers discover your writing.