What is speculative fiction and why should you care?

Dave: The truth is that I wanted to be a novelist from age of eight, and I never really wanted to be a lawyer. When I was young, my dad would go to economics conferences and would come back with like a gift for each kid. The first time I remember this happening was when I was eight and he brought me a copy of the Silver Jubilee 25th Anniversary Edition box set of the Lord of the Rings. So, I put myself into bed and just basically didn't emerge until I'd read them all. I decided then that I wanted to be a writer of epic fantasy.

But what happened is I met this girl and I wanted to get married, and she didn't want to be poor. That seemed fair. So, I went to law school and I'm still a member of the New York Bar. I ended up becoming a chief corporate counsel at a billion‐dollar manufacturer and we sold the company. That gave me some money that I could do whatever I wanted for a little while. And I said, this is the opportunity I'm going to write. So, from the summer of 2010 until early 2013, I wrote full time and lived off this money.

And I got an agent. He took my book around, couldn't sell it, and then he dumped me. So, I started self‐publishing. I wrote the book that later on got me my second agent and got picked up and published by Random House. And then I had another book picked up by Baen. That kicked off my writing career.

Me: Sometime after that you became a fantasy editor, tell us about that.
Dave: In 2014 I saw that I needed a way to get to writing conventions on a regular basis. So, I pitched WordFire Press and said, You guys ought to publish my stuff. And they did. As a result, I ended up traveling with the owner to different cons. Then, when WordFire needed an acquisitions editor, I said, Look, I'll do it. And that was my foot in the door on editing.

Me: You had success both as a writer and an editor. Do you prefer one over the other?
Dave: I see myself principally as a writer, 100 percent. That doesn't mean that editing is just to pay the bills. There's some great stuff about editing. Being an editor is a way to help other writers. But even if I could unlock somebody's writing career, no one's going to remember me that way. So, what I would want is for people to say, Man, that guy was a weirdo, he dressed funny, he looked like a troll, but he wrote some books that really made a difference to me, that helped me at some moment in my life or showed me something I hadn't noticed that mattered.

Me: What advice would you give aspiring writers to help them succeed?
Scott: I would say that there's no wrong way to write that results in successfully connecting with the reader. But there are two things that I really believe in though. The first is that you tell the truth, even when it's hard. Use symbols that are meaningful and real to you. Say things that matter. Take away the euphemism. Take away the irony. Step away from all the shields that stand between you and the subject in between you and the audience, and try to say truth, and accept the fact that you will take blows as a result.

Thing two, don't quit. I know so many more people who did it for a while then left because, it made an okay return, but they could make more money somewhere else. So, you need to finish your epic fantasy series. Don't quit when you have bad reviews. Don't quit when you get dumped by your agent. Don't quit when your publisher folds or orphans your book. Don't quit.

Me: Tell us about your new venture with Ark Press.
Dave: Yeah, we're in week four with Ark Press. So, Tony Daniel, who I knew from Baen, reached out and recruited me and here we are.

Me: How does Ark Press separate itself or stand out from other traditional publishers?
Dave: That's a good question. First, we think that traditional publishing has been underserving male readers for maybe a long time, but certainly in the last decade. The power readers, the people who read the most books are middle aged women. From a financial point of view, it may very well serve a publisher to chase that demographic. But we want to serve potentially all readers, and really make sure that we're not leaving behind male readers.

Second, we are not woke and we're not going to be woke. We're not trying to attack people who are. We don't care if you want to have pronouns in your bio, but we won't. We're not ever going to say we are looking for writers with X, Y, and Z intersectionalities. We don't care about your intersectionalities, one way or the other. I want books that I love, that tell truth, and that will reach people and help them.

Three, we have a motto that humans win in the end. We are pro human. That doesn't mean we're not willing to look at like a dystopian novel. A dystopian novel can be profoundly pro human. But we're probably not interested in nihilism, human hating, or anything that undermines the cause of humanity as a whole.

Me: If writers want to submit to you, what do you suggest they do?

Dave: We have to be able to quickly decide what books are good for us and what books are not good for us. So, we're asking people to prepare a book proposal. We have a memo, which we'll ultimately get up on our website, but for writers who want to submit now, they can join my Discord server and the memo on how to write a book proposal for us is pinned at the top of the channel.

D.J. Butler limited time Discord invitation

The above has been edited for length. To see and hear the rest of the interview and get even more insight on D.J. Butler's thoughts and a behind the scenes look into Ark Press, watch the full interview at www.kenbakerbooks.com/expert_DJ_Butler

To learn more D.J. Butler, visit davidjohnbutler.com/dave-butler/