Interview with Stacey Cochrane, author of Claws

Stacey Cochrane, author of the newly-released thriller Claws, takes some time to chat with us.

For those of us who have not yet read your books, tell us a little bit about you and your work.

I should start first by thanking you for having me today, Megalith. Little guys like me really cannot survive without word of mouth, and your asking to interview me means a whole lot. Thank you.

For those unfamiliar with my writing (which would be most everyone, I’d imagine; except for my mom, of course), I’ve been writing fulltime for about eight years now. However, my first pro accolade in this business dates to 1998 when I was selected as a finalist for the Dell Magazines Award for undergraduate fiction. I write suspense fiction in all of its forms: science fiction, mainstream suspense, and even more recently what some might call the “literary thriller.” My two bestselling novels to date are The Colorado Sequence and Claws.

Can you give us a spoiler-free preview of Claws?

Claws is a mountain lion version of Jaws. The protagonist is a wildlife biologist at the University of Arizona who is drawn into a police investigation when two of her brightest students are found dead on a golf course that borders protected National Forest Land. She suspects they were killed by a large mountain lion, but her position draws her into conflict with local politicians and the golf course resort’s owner.

Why did you choose the Mountain Lion as the key player in Claws?

I was living in Tucson, Arizona back around 2004, and our local news kept buzzing about the mountain lion sightings close to town. A couple elementary schools had to be shut down several times due to mountain lions stalking school kids.

Tell us a little about the controversy surrounding mountain lions.

Well, the controversy in Arizona revolved around how to handle the cougars who were stalking kids. Conservation-minded folk suggested things like relocation of the mountain lions and using bean-bag guns to scare them away. Less sympathetic folk had other ideas about what to do. And in Tucson, the problem was complicated even further because the northern edge of town borders a huge 250,000-acre National Forest Land area, which prohibits hunting. From a law enforcement perspective, too, there were some jurisdictional issues.

Was the process of writing Claws different from writing The Colorado Sequence?

A little bit. I did a lot more library research for Claws. When I started the novel, I didn’t know much about mountain lions. So I read a lot of books and articles. The Colorado Sequence was just kind of pure fiction. Totally made up stuff.

Your novels are sitting high atop the Kindle charts. To what do you credit their success in that particular format?

It’s almost too soon to tell, but I suspect that the price point helps. The books only cost 80 cents! But there are plenty of authors who have similar price points and aren’t selling as well. I think that thrillers and sci-fi suspense novels are the right kind of novels for the typical Kindle reader. I’ve seen a few other thriller authors doing very well on Kindle. Chick lit, though, is doing terribly on the Kindle. If you think about the kind of people who own a Kindle, they’re the same kinds of folks who love really good sci-fi, horror, and suspense novels. So it’s largely just that they’re the right books at the right time at the right price and selling at the right place.

Most folks who just spent 400 bucks on a Kindle Reader are eager to try it out by downloading a lot of good books. Good books that are priced at 80 cents do well.

What do you think of the future of Kindle as a way of readers discovering new authors?

Man, I’ve been doing this a long time - writing fiction - and I have never seen anything else like this. It is absolutely changing the landscape for writers like me, John Rector, Boyd Morrison, and J.A. Konrath. On the day that I’m writing up these answers, I have sold 340 copies today alone. Prior to publishing on Kindle, I hadn’t sold 340 copies in five years with trade paperback versions of my books.

Tell us about your blog tour.

The blog tour is a 45-day concerted effort to do as many guest blogs, interviews, and promotional spots as I possibly can. I’ve been using YouTube to post personal message for host blogs, writing up text messages (like this one), and doing a couple of Skype interviews. It’s like a traditional book tour, except that it’s entirely online. Instead of visiting libraries and bookstores, I’m visiting other writers’ websites and blogs.

Have you started on your next novel?

I do have a work in progress. It’s titled The Eternalist. It’s a Southern gothic novel… kind of a cross between Stephen King and Agatha Christie.

Tell us about you as a writer. Outliner or discovery writer? Music in the background or no music? How many drafts before you consider a work finished? Any writing eccentricities? What authors in the genre do you enjoy reading?

For The Colorado Sequence and Claws I was a discovery writer. For my current work in progress, I have a compendium that contains character sketches for each of my main characters, and I outline each chapter before I write it. For my chapter outline, I list who the POV character in the chapter will be, what his/her internal goal is, what his/her external goal is, what the obstacles to these goals are, and what the emotional arc of the scene should be for the character.

I don’t listen to music, but I often have to write with my two-year-old close by, and so he’ll be watching Sesame Street or something with kiddie music and counting numbers and ABCs, while I’m in the other room battling the demons in my head. Very strange really.

What advice would you give to someone who is just getting started writing adventures or thrillers?

To always thank someone who interviews them and tell their interviewer what a great job they’re doing! Seriously, I do appreciate this, Megalith.

Any parting words for our readers?

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Thank you very much for taking the time to chat with us!

Thanks so much, Megalith!