Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: I'm Joanne Morrell, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for Authors. Thanks for joining me for the Hybrid Author Podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author both independently and traditionally publishing your books. You can get the show notes for.
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[00:00:43] Speaker C: Hello authors. I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to the podcast in Today's interview is with Michael Bland on how government surveillance technology featured in Michael's trilogy is currently becoming a reality and where it could go in the future, and we chat government Surveillance Technology definitions and impacts in the Author World, Michael's advice to authors around current and future technology and applying it to author business and much more so on my Author Adventure this week I've had some good news regarding my women's fiction book, the Writer, the Hairdresser and the Nurse, which I will share at the end of January as permitted. Other than that, my author adventure this past few weeks has been on hiatus really, as I've not had capacity to cope with anything author related on my plate. It's the holidays, kids are home from school, I've had birthdays, been away camping for a few days with friends, which resulted in my children's needs taking precedent for quite some days after. There's been a lot going on personally, so professionally has had to wait. And that's okay. It has to be. Sometimes. It has to be. Sometimes when life throws stuff at you, you need to drop the writerly pen and catch it. Sometimes there's no choice and what's most important, where your attention needs turning and then once the dust clears, inspiration strikes and you're off again and everything feels amazing and you feel whole and you're doing what you're meant to be doing, which is writing. So I'll be doing a Lessons Learned episode next week and this will reflect on the year that's been 2024. Fears, failures, triumphs, and staying true, as well as changes to this podcast and my plans on how to thrive in 2025. But for now, here's a word from our fabulous sponsor, Thorn Creative, who My business couldn't be what it is without my stunning and easily navigated author website. I have to sell books, sport my PO episodes, and share all things relevant to working with me such as talks, workshops and much more.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Thorn Creative where Beautiful websites for authors are brought to life no matter what stage you're at with your writing, your stories deserve a dedicated space to shine. Whether you're just starting out or have a bookshelf full of bestsellers, your website is the hub of your author business. Finding everything you and your books offer together, Thorne Creative can nurture all aspects of redesigning your old site or start afresh. From the initial design, they can provide ongoing hosting and maintenance to marketing your books online, saving you time, money and stress trying to wrangle your site yourself. An author website built by Thorne Creative can easily direct readers to your favorite retailers, your publisher, or simply set you up to sell to them direct. The options are endless. Thorne Creative have worked with many authors across all genres and know what goes into good functional working author websites to sell books. Head on over to thorncreative.com websitesforauthors to read author and publisher testimonials and to see what they offer and some of the sites they've created.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Michael C. Bland is an accomplished author, editor and founding member and secretary of Book Pod, an invitation only online support group of award winning writers, filmmakers, journalists and best selling authors. Michael has received numerous awards for the first two books of his futuristic trilogy, the Price of Safety, an Amazon top 10 bestseller that reached number seven for dystopian fiction and the Price of Rebellion. The series follows a father as he tries to protect his family from the high surveillance society he helped create. His trilogy explores the potential and likely future of an increasingly overbearing and controlling government. The theme and narrative, along with Michael's exciting writing style have captivated science fiction lover. Welcome to the Hybrid Author Podcast, Michael.
[00:05:09] Speaker D: Thank you Joanne. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Oh we're really happy to have you. Can you tell us, you know, how did you come to join writing and publishing?
[00:05:17] Speaker D: Well, it was not a straight path. My journey began as the result of a reality check. When I was much younger I followed what I thought was a smart path in my future college business major, focused and all sensible. After graduation my first job was in the collections collections department of a finance company, including repossessing cars. And just so you know, I am not a very imposing person. I'm not threatening looking at all. But more importantly, this was not the kind of future that I wanted. So that's when I evaluated what I really wanted to do with my life. Where did I want to go? I've always been fascinated by stories, both creating them Enjoying them. And I wanted to attempt to do something bigger than myself. I wanted to do something that was important to me and would maybe resonate with others in some way. And that's what led me to sort of start writing. And it's been a long journey. It began in my mid-20s and more than two decades have passed. But I've learned the skills, developed my abilities, and I've created two novels that have seemed to have impacted people.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Amazing. Yeah, yeah. And so are you. You're obviously a reader and a lover of the genre that you're writing in.
[00:06:31] Speaker D: Absolutely. Like many other science fiction. Yes. Star wars, when I was, I'm going to date myself, but I was like six years old when it came out and man, that completely changed. But my writing is a lot more actual, closer to science and the actual technology and try to make it as realistic as possible. Trust me, I would love to have a lightsaber be real, but fortunately that's not real, at least right now.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's talk about the books. You know, they sound really intriguing and obviously you know, science fiction, dystopian, all that sort of stuff. But you have featured government surveillance technology in there. Can you tell us what that means for us non tech people? Like, I have a rough idea what I think that might mean, but I'm not entirely sure.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: Sure, absolutely. So the government surveillance technology consists of various kinds of surveillance with the purpose of intelligence collections, law enforcement, investigations, counterintelligence, monitoring, political intelligence, or for social control. And in both price of safety and the price of rebellion. The government surveillance is primarily for social control as well as manipulation as those in power hide their true identity. So I took surveillance that is currently around magnified it, blew it up, added to it, but trust me, there's a lot of stuff that I really didn't even need to make up because it is, it's becoming more and more prevalent. So what I mean by that is the types of surveillance that are used against the characters in the book and that unfortunately can be used and is being used in various ways against various people. You have video surveillance that's probably the one that might come to most listeners minds first. You're talking the cameras, satellites, also drones, which are becoming more and more prevalent. And I think drones are going to be bane of our existence in the future. But all those are used to locate, track, hunt down enemies, perceive threats, that kind of thing. You also have audio surveillance, listening devices, bugs, wiretapping, the cell phone data capturing and dummy cell phone towers that will take everything that your Cell phone is sending and cataloging all that and giving it to the government. You also have computer cyber surveillance, Internet activity, email, web browsing, social media, including in my books, the implants, the implanted miniature computers that the characters have. And there's also biometric surveillance, facial recognition, iris scans, other biometric data. The list goes on. There's also financial surveillance, there's even postal surveillance. So all of these. Now I didn't do the financial or post on the book, but all the rest I used in different areas and showing how technology is fantastic. I love technology, but it can be used. It's a tool like anything else. It can be used both for good and evil. And if the people that wield it, that have that ability, use it for their own purposes, it's going to be really hard to try to avoid.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. And I understand and know some of the technology that you're talking about and others a little bit foreign. So did you have to research all this technology like quite extensively before implementing into your book? And was some of it futuristic when you wrote the book, but now it's sort of reality, obviously? Yeah, drones are out there. We've got Suri, we've got all these other things. There's some, some that are current now.
[00:10:06] Speaker D: Yeah, I, I did, I did a lot of research. One of my goals was I really wanted to make the world that this exists in, these stories exist in as realistic as possible. I did a ton of research. Way more down the rabbit holes than than I needed with the book. But they gave me ideas, inspired me and, and what I then tried to do is I then, because the book transpires 25 years from now. So it's. What's the technology going to be 25 years from now? Just like 25 years in the past, beepers were just now being phased out. I mean that was the kind of, you know, the advancement from 25 years to now. Think about what 25 years in the future is going to be. But what, what's really kind of freaked me out in a, you know, surprised me after reading or completing these books is number of advances that when I wrote the book did not exist but do now. In my first book, the Price of Safety, at one point the government uses these swarming drones to attack the main characters. In fact, the image on the COVID of the book reflects part of that scene. Yet a news article last year describes how a company in California has now developed that technology. Another piece of technology I envisioned was what I called DNA sniffers. Now we all Leave little bits of hair and dead skin as we, as we move about, just, we shed that naturally. In the Price of Rebellion, the government uses the DNA sniffers to pull that dead skin or hair out of the air, scan it, identify the person and I, and to try to find our heroes. Within months of that novel's release, there was an article that describes that very technology. A different California based company has created a device exactly like my novel.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:48] Speaker D: So it's impacted by world by world. As I'm, you know, as I was writing the third book and the third book's done, I'm just tweaking. It is pushing the technology that I conceived to make it even more advanced. That can still either hamper or help my characters in ways that are unexpected while continuing to be realistic. But at the same time, these advances have made my book feel closer than I'd expected and closer to reality. And in some ways, like with that DNA sniffer a little too close.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially when you set it sort of 25 years into the future and you're like, oh, it's now.
Are you, are you worried about it dating?
[00:12:23] Speaker D: Because we're advancing in a way. Yes, a little bit because of, you know, and advancing to such a degree. And that's really kind of, it's a little ironic. Yet also was a central theme in my book of, hey, this technology is being created and being implemented in ways faster than we as species really understanding or have had the time to think through what is the impact when the vehicle, when the automobile was first created a long time before it was rapidly utilized by everybody. That was the main trip form of transportation. Look at AI. That's gone from, you know, nothing really. At least in terms of, in the, you know, in the real world, in terms of people using it, everything. And now it's, it's getting, it's starting to quickly get into so many areas of our lives.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And even. Well, they are creating like. Well, they have. It's already there. Robots like workforce and yeah, it just, it scares me and it sort of spins me out, but it is super fast. I went to a conference, an all day sort of conference a couple weeks ago and it was like this free thing about AI and it showed you. I think it's the text to video Sora or I don't know if I'm saying that right, AI and they showed you. I think it was six months ago where this was at.
[00:13:51] Speaker D: So.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: So the prompt that they'd put in was Will Smith eating spaghetti. And the. So Will Smith's Face was a bit distorted and the spaghetti wasn't really hitting his mouth, it was flying all over the, like the image. And so it looked really weird and it wasn't very great. And then six months on it showed you the advancements that this AI had made in only six months. And the prompt was. I've talked about it on the podcast prior, but it was like a Asian lady walking through the streets of Tokyo or something after it's been raining. And this looked like something out of a 3D movie from Hollywood. The graphics were amazing. They had the city sort of highlighted in our sunglasses. And the advancement from six months was just, just absolutely insane. So it was really quite scary, quite mind blowing. That especially that technology and how fast it's rolling out and how well it is. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's like a. This will be the new technology revolution, I guess that's hitting all our industries, not just authorship.
[00:14:52] Speaker D: You're right. And also not only images, but now videos as well.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: I know. I did think of the film industry and I thought how is that going to work? I suppose we just have to. Oh, because the seminar was for small. I think it was aimed at like small business and how you can implement AI into your small business and not just from an authorship perspective. But they believed the, the gentleman that sort of hosted it, that AI generated sites is going to be like the new Internet, like how we've got websites. Then AI is going to be. Everyone's going to have an AI specific for their business and how they could do it. And I think that was something that they were rolling out themselves because people are just going to. Yeah, it's like using that as a browser now. And his suggestion was to be playing with AI for at least an hour to two hours a day. And I was just like, okay. And maybe people will go to AI over Internet searching and that's going to be the new thing. So it's just all new technology that we all have to work out. So yeah, I was quite interested to wonder whether you had featured AI in your trilogy.
[00:15:52] Speaker D: I really did not. Only because I wanted to focus on more hands on the characters as they're fighting direct people. And I definitely did not want say AI as the bad guy. That to me that isn't very interesting. It's now it's a computer type of. I'd rather that there be antagonists that have flaws and strengths just like the main characters, just like all of us. And AI is not to me an interesting bad guy.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:16:22] Speaker D: It's almost like fighting a toaster. Okay. Poster's doing.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: No, I think there is a movie though, a children's movie, the Happy Little Toaster or something.
[00:16:35] Speaker D: Now I have to go check that out.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Oh, well, no, I mean, all the technologies you put in absolutely blow my mind how advanced we have become. And yeah, I'm sure it makes for real gripping narrative in your stories. In terms of technology, I mean, from an authorship perspective, in our business, in terms of rats and things, do you have any advice for authors sort of tightening their business around this sort of future technology or should we be using it or.
[00:17:08] Speaker D: Yeah, I think there, it should be used smartly. Again, going back to technology can be good for use for good or ill. Right. So for me, I stay away from AI in terms of writing the writing side of it. To me, it's my voice, it's my work, it's my. And trust me, I'm even saying that knowing that yesterday I took an hour straight working back and forth on a few paragraphs. Now the reader is never going to, if I did my job right, they're never going to notice. It's just they're going to be involved in the story. And yes, I know that I could use AI to say, hey, make this paragraph or this page or whatever better. But then I'm not getting better, I'm not improving. And it's also not my work at that point. So I discourage using AI because as a, as a writer, as a creative, you're not growing and we're all growing and we're all working to get better. And that's what, that's what makes you a better, your work better and you better as a creative. However, now on the marketing side on pitching to literary agents to hey, provide a one page synopsis of this or take what was, you know, a four page synopsis and a literary agent wants one page. Yes, you can definitely utilize AI or I would suggest using tools like that, just as you would use a writing coach or something like that for parts of it that aren't your work per se. Yes, everything that you would submit would be a reflection of you. So definitely make sure that whatever AI has tweaked it's. You change it, put it in your voice, it's a guide, but still have it as your work. But marketing, like for example, I'm not a great marketing working person, so I would actually then lean on AI or other technologies to try to help on that side. So that's definitely one area that I would recommend. Authors Pursue as well as, you know, other avenues, you know. So that's, that's what. That would be one of my big suggestions.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And just sort of playing around with it. I think I put in oh like a couple weeks ago or something. Can you suggest some social media posts for my book on blah blah blah. And yeah, I mean it came up with some ideas that you could have quotes on this or that. Not actually telling you what, like what to write. Not word for word or anything like that, but just sort of more like sort of ideas and things like that. Like playing off ideas with it in terms of marketing. But so yeah, I find that pretty helpful with it I guess rather than you sitting. But still I don't want to lose that train of thought, I guess or my thinking process and take my like what you're saying your own self away from your work, I suppose and let this thing do all the work for you. It makes me think of. I've said this before. Have you ever seen that Pixar movie? It was really old Wall E. I think it could be the first one that came out.
[00:20:09] Speaker D: Yes. I love it.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: All the humans are like fat up in the, in the spaceship because all the robots are doing everything for them and they're just sitting, watching TV and whatnot. Because that's what I'm worried about with this AI that people just. They use it and they don't. They stop the thinking and it's like a calculator for them. It's going to do the stuff for them, the answers for. And everyone's just going to get dumber.
[00:20:30] Speaker D: Right. And won't know how to do anything. What if then the power goes out kind of thing. I don't even know how to, you know, change a circuit breaker to get the power back on. Right. You need to have certain skills, knowledge, that kind of thing.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And as long as it's not doing that for you, but maybe aiding you to work faster, better in that way, but still work, I suppose.
[00:20:56] Speaker D: Right. Another. Another way you could do it and this could be kind of a fun is. And a writer friend does this where she is working on a story idea and has some general ideas for characters and then used AI to create images that then to help kind of clarify in her mind, oh, this is what this female character looks like. This is what this older male kind of thing. So that way when then she starts to write, she has that extra confidence that. Oh, that's right. This character had the blue eyes. This character had this, you know, cleft chin, you know, kind of thing. And just to add those little details or at least keeping in her head. She's got a lot of characters of to. To help keep track of everything. Yeah, she feels it makes the story better. So it's a way that you're using AI but not in your actual creative stories. Just helping as an additional guide.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. I. It's something I've noticed with my process and I've always done it is generally starting with an idea for a story or whatever character or title or something. And as I go I usually look up because I work with Plottr software and Scrivener software and I like to have visuals and things. So I'll go onto the Internet and usually if I've got a name of a character, I'll actually just type in the person's name with the age and see which out of images through Google what images come up for that sort of name. And then I, you know, if I feel a connection with one or I think that person looks like. So that's my old school way of doing that. So my new school. Yeah, my new school way could be to ask and put in the traits of the character because usually I'll have that as well through AI and see what picture comes up and then just adhere to describing that. So yeah, that's a good idea.
Tell us, you know, about your future work. So are you writing another trilogy or anything else happening there?
[00:22:46] Speaker D: Well, right now I'm finishing up the. The third one. I'm. I do a lot of editing and you know, I sometimes, you know, agonize a little bit over this scene or this, you know, sentence, paragraph, whatever, just to make it as good of a story as possible. So I'm planning, I'm aiming to get it to my publisher in the next roughly two months. That close and then as a publisher then they're going to have their editor, but that their editor. The first two books have just been little grammatical thing here and there there. So the story should be done. So after I submit that then I'm going to figure what I'm going to do next. And I have a lot of ideas for stories and what I'll do is I have a couple word docs that I type in ideas whether it's a one or two sentence or there's a couple that are three or four page description about it. I need to go in and start now looking at those, see what one. What story I want to pursue next. So know it's. It's gonna, it's gonna be fun to. Because. But it's also a two to three year movement.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:51] Speaker D: I want to make sure that I'm picking right. The best or not. I. I don't know if I want to do a trilogy next. I think I want to try to do a one off story now. I say that and probably watch someone will bring up this podcast.
Why'd you start another trilogy? Right.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Still in the genre though. This is, this is where you write? Yep.
[00:24:08] Speaker D: This is where you're standing is my favorite. Yeah, I, I do write. They're also like, they're thriller, they're fast paced stories because I really like with you know, throwing people characters into, you know, horrible situations. It's a horrible thing to say but I. So it's a. They're fast paced books so I'm probably going to stick to more of a faster pace sci Fi story.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: And do you have any tips for authors who want to write in the sci fi genre or just even people who want to include like futurist or current technology in their book? Is, is have you found any sort of sites or, or people that have been invaluable to your research and things?
[00:24:50] Speaker D: For me, it's not so much the, the genre per se, it's for me one of the biggest benefits and I took classes and read books and all that stuff. The biggest benefit for me was finding a fellow writer who would not pull any punches. I mean, I'm sure my, my family like, I'm sure, you know, a lot of authors, they'll read it, they go, oh, this is such a good story. Great. Well, do you see any issues? No, it's all great. Okay. That doesn't help me. Right. I, I want to know what works or what doesn't, especially the bad stuff. Now it's not fun at all. Right. Because you don't, you know, this is your baby. This is what you've been working on. And you think this is such a great story. And they go, yeah, I don't believe this character. And then you lost me here. Those kinds of things. Right. It's very hard to accept that, but it's necessary. Now that doesn't mean the other person and I have a person like this and he's a fellow writer and he's won numerous awards and we've been editing each other's books for a while now. In fact, he's going through the third book while I'm editing a draft of his book that he's writing. So that is really invaluable because he does not pull any punches. Some of my earlier work, he would send it back with just like the entire page crossed out. Like. What do you mean just crossed out? Nothing.
Like any of it.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Oh, that must have felt good.
[00:26:16] Speaker D: Oh, my wife could tell you there are times I got off the phone and I just felt like I threw like 10 rounds. But it made me a better writer and it made the stories better. That doesn't mean he's always right. Trust me. There's. I take probably about you know, between 85 to 90% of his suggestions. Well, okay, maybe 75 to 80, but.
But it. What it does, even if it's something that I don't accept, it makes me relook at it and look at it from slightly different perspective. Like, well, wait, there was something that stuck with him that he didn't think it worked or should be removed or whatever. Does what. First of all, does it need to stay in there? If so, then okay, good. If not, just get rid of it kind of thing.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's.
[00:27:04] Speaker D: Ray. Yeah.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry. You finished?
[00:27:07] Speaker D: No, I was just gonna say so, but it just forces me to look at everything with a. A eye that I didn't. I originally thought it was all fine and now gives. Makes me look at it more critically and improve it.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And is he a member of Book Pod? Your invitation only. Yeah. Okay. That's. Yeah. And how did that come about bookpod?
[00:27:29] Speaker D: Through mutual friend.
Through actually through Robert, This. This other gentleman and with other authors and talking about a, you know, like community. Because writing as you know, can be just so, you know, solitary in a lot of ways. And it's nice to. Even if it's just join little victories. Hey, I got a callback on my publisher for, you know, this literary agent they now want to see chapter and that kind of thing just to help encourage each other or if there's an issue, you get this entertainment lawyer that has sent you this contract and has anyone seen this before, seen one like it? You know, the things they need to watch out for, those kinds of things. So that's a way to help and encourage and that kind of thing.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. That's amazing. Now that's really good advice there and I wholeheartedly agree. You know, you can sit with your work, but you really need to put it out there and with someone you trust as well and appreciate, admire their honesty and opinions and things for sure, that absolutely help. So thank you so much, Michael. You have shared absolutely lots of good tips there and been really interesting to talk to you. Can you tell our listeners where they can find your soon to be finished trilogy and everything you do in stores and online?
[00:28:51] Speaker D: Absolutely. Amazon, of course. Barnes and Noble Books on Audible, itunes. You can also just go to my website. It's www.mcbland.com pretty easy. You can contact me through there if you'd like as well get to know about more about me and my books.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, thanks again, Michael. That was great, Joanne.
[00:29:12] Speaker D: Thank you. It's been a lot of fun.
[00:29:21] Speaker C: So there you have it, folks. Michael Bland on how government surveillance technology featured in Michael's trilogy is currently bec a reality. Very current topic, obviously, with the, you know, explosion of generative AI taking over different industries, entering the publishing sphere. I even seen an advert the other day about a lady saying I created an ebook with AI and you know, a $27 ebook. And I just thought, who is going to pay $27 for an ebook? But that's just my opinion, I guess. So it's going to be interesting to see how this spans out, especially in the new year, something I want to do a lot more research in and a lot more educ around myself of these technologies. And that'll be something that I touch on in the less, you know, the next episode, which is the lessons learned. Yeah. Next time on the Hybrid Author Podcast we have a loner sword from me to wrap up the year on lessons learned in 2024 and how to thrive in 2025. I wish you well in your author adventure this next week. Next time you tune in, it will be 2025. Happy New Year from me when it comes. Bye for now.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: That's the end for now, authors. I hope you are further forward in your author adventure after listening, and I hope you'll listen next time. Remember to head on over to the Hybrid Author website at www.hybridauthor.com to get your free author pass.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: It's bye for now.
