Today we’d like to introduce you to Shawn Warner.
Hi Shawn, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been writing since I was a little kid. I remember being 6 or 7 years old with a big yellow pad and a fat pencil on my bedroom floor, trying to write an adventure story like the kind my mom read to me, Billy and Blaze. As I grew and went to school, I always enjoyed the writing assignments, but I remember being told how good my stories were but that I “can’t make a living doing that.”
So, with that news went my dreams of being a writer. I wasn’t the greatest student, but after being discharged from the army, I went to school and graduated with psychology and social work degrees to work with pediatric patients but found myself drawn to a different field. I studied computer science and went to work as a programmer to support my family. A little over 15 years ago, I found myself unemployed after company org changes, and my wife encouraged me to pursue writing as it was something I had continued to toy with.
That’s when I really started to learn the craft of writing, and I wrote some spectacularly bad stories. Everyone has to start somewhere. Along the way, I joined author groups, took workshops, and continued to study the craft of writing. I was pitching my story, then a story of a group of teens dreaming of being spies but who got caught in a tangled web of vengeance spun by a terrorist.
I got rejection letter after rejection letter. I continued to write. Along the way, as I was working on my teen spy story, a teen girl popped into my head like a music tune, you can’t get out of your head. She begged and nagged me to tell her story, so I had to stop what I was working on to write her story. I pitched her story to a few agents and got a few nibbles but no strong bite. My wife found Black Rose Writing and encouraged me to submit my story to them.
They snatched up my story, and it was published in November of 2022. After it was published, I started scheduling book signings at local bookshops like Half Price Books. One of my author friends told me about an author’s program in a grocery store, so I signed up, paid the fees, and started scheduling local book signings. That’s when I’d sit in the grocery store for 4-6 hours pitching my book to people looking to buy milk and eggs.
During one of those book signing in July of the following year, a gentleman approached me. After 6 hours in a grocery store, I looked terrifically bored and was probably tired. There was a lull in the grocery store, so there weren’t a lot of people around. He asked if he could take a video of me for his TikTok channel and I thought “I’m not doing much here, if I can help him with his channel why not.”
The following day or so, my phone started dinging, and my wife’s phone started beeping. I was gaining subscribers, and people were purchasing books off of my website. I wondered what had happened, and then I thought maybe it was the guy who took the video. My daughter let me know that I had gone viral.
I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t even have a TikTok channel. Since then, I managed to learn a little bit of TikTok. I was invited to the Today Show in NYC, and having news crews in our living room became a ‘normal’ thing for a while.
I’ve since gone on to sell over 100k copies of the book Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor, and foreign rights have been secured for over 10 languages. The book that Leigh Howard interrupted me from writing, Homeland Insecurity publishes mid 2024. I’m hoping Jack and company has a good reception as Leigh did.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Writing is never smooth. One of the big struggles is because I have a touch of dyslexia; reading is a very slow process for me. Writing and dyslexia don’t seem like a good combination, but because of it, I believe I’m a better writer. I can’t multitask which means I have to focus intently on what I read or write. That deep focus comes out in the dialogue in my stores, where people comment they “feel as if they are part of the story.”
Losing my job was another struggle. I kept trying to make traditional work work for me, but that wasn’t what I was created to do, but it never felt good getting let go. I was the sole income for my family, so that was a hard thing to digest, but my wife has been such a strong supporter and believer in me. She encouraged me to write. She encouraged me to join author groups to attend conferences and workshops even though they cost quite a bit, and I wasn’t bringing income in from my writing. It was a huge investment but well worth it.
Another struggle is I was homeschooling our kids as I was writing out of necessity. Our family lived in Texas while we were in Minnesota or Ohio. My parents had Alzheimer’s and Dementia, so we needed to travel home to help with their care. My wife’s brother had pancreatic cancer, and we had to temporarily and then more permanently move back home as a result.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a writer and author of adventure stories that’ll build your creativity and imagination muscles. I believe reading should be fun, and I’m on a mission to put reading back on the list of fun things to do.
I used to read as a form of escape from stress or worries, and growing up, I was encouraged to read. Often, when kids are forced to read, it can make reading a chore, but reading helps ease stress, and it’s been shown to help people think creatively. The more you read, the better your imagination gets and the better a problem solver you become. I write fun adventure stories so people can boost their creativity and imagination and so they can have fun.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I like the people, the parks, and that there are no shortage of amazing bookstores to plop down and enjoy an afternoon. I don’t really like the traffic or the continual building, but when a city is growing, that’s part of the growing pain.
Pricing:
- Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons Pierce Manor signed Papercopy with bookish merch, $25
- Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons-Pierce Manor, Signed Hard Copy with bookish merch, $35
- Pre-order Homeland Insecurity $25 and up
Contact Info:
- Website: shawnwarner.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/shawnwarnerwrites
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawnwarnerwrites
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shawnwwrites
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnwwrites
Image Credits
Lizette Warner
