Today's guest is Rohan Quine, author of The Beasts of Electra Drive, which was a 2018 finalist for the Independent Author Network Book of the Year Awards. With themes of magic realism, technology, horror, LGBTQ characters, it is both a genre and gender-bending indie book.

I call him genre-bending because he retrospectively finds labels to apply. That means he just writes, and does not really concern himself with categories. Later, he sees that his book can be defined as sci-fi, horror, fantasy, LGBTQ, among other labels. This is one advantage to indie publishing, of course. A traditional publisher would probably want him to just pick one.

After having spoken to Rohan, I can see why he would not want to play that game. In conversation, he can seem a little unconventional, even a little untamed. Thoughts pour out of him as a way of vocalizing internal dialogues. This is the way he writes, and it is also why he writes.

To read his "voice" does not do him justice. That is why he is recording his books on audio and video, and it's why I chose to interview him for my latest Inspirational Indie Authors podcast.

Every week I interview a member of ALLi who has done something remarkable and inspiring. This is the only show in our AskALLi series that does not focus on the business side of self-publishing. My guests talk about their writing and what inspires them, and why they are inspiring to other authors.

Find more author advice, tips and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center: https://selfpublishingadvice.org, with a huge archive of nearly 2,000 blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need.

And, if you haven't already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at http://allianceindependentauthors.org.

About the Host

Howard Lovy has been a journalist for more than 30 years, and has spent the last six years amplifying the voices of independent publishers and authors. He works with authors as a book editor to prepare their work to be published. Howard is also a freelance writer specializing in Jewish issues whose work appears regularly in Publishers Weekly, the Jewish Daily Forward, and Longreads. Find Howard at howardlovy.com, LinkedIn and Twitter.