Interview with Jean Marie Bauhaus

Author of The Spirits Collection

Where are you from originally and where do you reside now?

I currently reside in the middle of the Ozark wilderness in northern Arkansas, but I’m originally from the greater Tulsa metro area in northeastern Oklahoma.

If you currently reside somewhere besides where you were born, what’s the story that lead from there to here?

My husband and I were married in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We thought it was so beautiful there, we started dreaming of moving to the Ozarks someday. So last year when we were offered a chance to move onto a property here in the Ozarks and serve as caretakers, we jumped at it.

What made you decide to write and publish your first book?

My first book, Restless Spirits, took an unusual path that led to it’s being published twice. It was actually probably the fourth or fifth novel I’d written, and I had posted an earlier draft of it on my blog and gotten good feedback. Around 2012, self-publishing was really starting to take off and gain some legitimacy, and I loved the DIY aspect of it all, so I decided to publish as an experiment and to learn the process.

Fast-forward to 2015, after I had a few more self-published books under my belt, a representative from Vinspire contacted me to see if I’d be interested in re-publishing Restless Spirits with them and turning it into a series. Despite some small success with self-publishing, I still felt like getting traditionally published would mean I had truly arrived, so I gladly accepted the offer and ended up signing a four book contract. Thus the Restless Spirits series was born.

How would you describe your books to first time readers?

The Restless Spirits series, which is collected in the Spirits Collection, follows the Wilson sisters — Chris, still living, who has a talent for seeing and talking to ghosts — and Ron (short for Veronica), who is recently deceased.

As paranormal investigators, Ron is setting up for an investigation in the most haunted house in town when she wakes up next to her own body with no memory of having died. With the help of her sister and the other ghostly residents trapped in the house, Ron must solve the mystery of her death and find a way to free herself and her fellow prisoners so they can move onto the afterlife. But along the way Ron finds she has too many reasons to linger on this side of the light.

The rest of the series follows both sisters and their romantic entanglements as they solve mysteries, confront malevolent spirits and sort out family drama. But as much as the series focuses on the romantic lives of the protagonists, the biggest love story is between the sisters themselves, and their sisterly bond that even death can’t destroy.

Who do you feel is most likely to connect with the topics you write about?

The vibe of these books is very Gilmore Girls meets Veronica Mars meets Supernatural, so fans of any of those shows would probably enjoy them. The romance is fairly clean and would appeal to readers who enjoy love stories without graphic sex. It does contain a fair amount of scares and violence, but if you can handle Supernatural you could handle these books. I should add a content warning for child and infant death, however.

What unexpected or surprising thing did you learn during the process of writing and publishing?

I learned that every book I write requires a different approach. I pantsed the first book (meaning that I wrote it without an outline or any planning). I thought I could do the same with the second book, but it was more of murder mystery, so I ended up having to scrap my first draft and create a detailed outline, working backwards from the ending to figure out how they would solve the murder.

As for publishing, the most surprising thing I learned is that I actually prefer to self-publish. Getting this series traditionally published was a great experience for which I’m truly grateful, but it turned out to be almost as much work as self-publishing, which I did not expect, and I had to give up a lot of control over each book.

Once they were written and turned in they no longer really belonged to me. I also received a lot less help with marketing than I expected, leaving me in pretty much the same boat I was in with my self-published titles. In the end, I don’t think it was worth it, and I wish I had simply published the series on my own.

If you could, what advice would you give to your past self before embarking on this journey?

I would tell her to always listen to her gut and trust her instincts more than the advice of various experts. That goes both for writing and storytelling and for publishing and marketing. I would also tell her not to spend so much time marketing one book and instead get busy writing the next one. Once you have enough books in your library, they eventually start to market themselves.

How many people would you ideally like to reach with your books?

Ideally, I’d love to reach enough people to land my books on the NYT bestseller list, LOL. But I’ve learned not to worry about the numbers. I try to focus on just writing the best stories I can and producing the best books I can and showing up to serve my loyal readers as best I can, and I’ll let the numbers sort themselves out.

What has been the biggest challenge and frustration during the process to date?

Like I said, giving up control over my books, knowing that they no longer truly belong to me, has been the most frustrating thing. It’s why I’ll stick with self-publishing for the foreseeable future.

What’s your biggest strengths when it comes to book a) writing, b) publishing and c) marketing?

I think my biggest strength when it comes to writing is that I’ve been doing it long enough that I’ve developed enough discipline and consistency that once I start a book I know I’ll finish it. I don’t necessarily write every day and sometimes life forces me to take long pauses, but I always come back and finish them sooner or later, so it’s not something I really fret over the way some writers seem to. The other thing is that I make my living as a freelance writer, which has trained me to produce pretty clean copy on the first pass, so my manuscripts don’t usually require a ton of copy editing.

With publishing, I think having had the experience of being traditionally published has done a lot to improve my self-publishing process. I do everything myself, other than having some help with editing. There wasn’t a lot of help available when I published my first couple of books, so the DIY approach was how most indie authors were doing it, and I had a professional background in both editing and in graphic design, so I had all the necessary skills to put together a professional-looking book.

As for marketing, that’s definitely my weakest area. For me, my biggest strength is that I don’t drive myself crazy trying to reach people. I really do the bare minimum, relying mainly on my mailing list and word of mouth, and trusting that my books will find their audience. Of course, this isn’t how I make my living, so I have that luxury.

What’s your biggest weakness when it comes to book a) writing, b) publishing and c) marketing?

Great question. I think my biggest weakness as a writer is that I have ADD and that can make it really hard to get started. Once I get going, I’m able to tune out distractions, but just getting started in the first place is a daily battle. I’ve learned to trick myself by setting a timer or giving myself really small assignments, telling myself that I can quit and do something else once the timer goes off or I meet that tiny goal. But usually once I reach that goal I’m ready to keep going and end up having a productive writing session. If I can just manage to force my butt into that writing chair, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I won’t get up again until I’ve written something.

The biggest obstacle I have to overcome when it comes to publishing is budget. I usually do each book on a shoestring, so I don’t have a lot to spend on professional images for cover design (fortunately, I’m married to a pretty great editor, so I get that done for free).

This can be limiting but it also forces me to get creative, which in the end I think helps my covers stand out from the genre crowd. One thing I really appreciated about having the Restless Spirits series traditionally published was that they paired me with a great cover designer, and I love the work she did on each of the covers. She really captured the essence of the series.

As for marketing — I just hate marketing. It wears me out and there’s a limit to how much I’m willing to do. I automate as much of it as possible and try not to worry about it.

When do you think you will write your next book?

I’m currently writing the third and final book in a separate series called Trilogy of the Damned, which is more straight-up post-apocalyptic horror, although it still contains an element of paranormal romance. The second book in that series just came out last month.

Are you self published or did you use a hybrid publisher, or a traditional publisher?

I have been both. The Spirits Collection and all of the individual books in the Restless Spirits series are traditionally published through Vinspire Publishing. All of my other titles are self-published, and I plan to stick with self-publishing for the foreseeable future.