The Prepper Broadcasting Network - FRANKLIN HORTON - Author Borrowed World Series

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Today's episode of Workshop Radio we have an incredible guest. Franklin Horton Author of the Borrowed World, Mad Mick, Locker Nine Series' and more joins us to share his personal story. Check out Franklin's Website www.franklinhorton.com Franklin's Merch Store www.resetroadhouse.com CONNECT WITH ME http://www.patchofthemonth.co/ PATCH OF THE MONTH CLUB http://toolmantim.co/ WEBSITE http://toolmantim.shop/ AMAZON AFFILIATE https://c3c5a9.myshopify.com/ MERCH http://www.youtube.com/c/toolmantimsworkshop/ YT https://rumble.com/c/ToolmanTimsWorkshop RUMBLE https://odysee.com/@Allseasonsmain:5 ODYSEE https://mewe.com/i/toolmantimsworkshop - MeWe http://www.facebook.com/toolmantimsworkshop/ - FB http://www.instagram.com/toolmantimsworkshop – IG https://twitter.com/toolmantimworks TWITTER http://t.me/toolmantimsworkshop TELEGRAM http://www.tiktok.com/@toolmantimsworkshop TIKTOK https://www.twitch.tv/toolmantimsworkshop TWITCH https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/toolmantim SPOTIFY https://freesteading.com/members/toolmantim/ FREESTEADING npub1738csh60emd5yl97sr092z0vqhde2fqgz3tdumcuvns2qker296q4dpx5q NOSTR http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com EXPERT COUNCIL https://www.empshield.com/link/cmz0bp0/ Save $50 on EMP Shield Mailing Address If you have anything interesting tool related you’d like to send my way, for review or just because, use the address below. U.S.A. Mailing address Toolman Tim Cook 102 Central Ave Ste 10699 Sweet Grass, MT 59484 CANADIAN Mailing Address ‘Toolman Tim’ P.O. Box 874 Provost, Alberta T0B3S0 Canada As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases Opus.Pro https://www.opus.pro/?via=toolmantim StreamYard https://streamyard.com/pal/c/5780333750648832 TubeBuddy https://www.tubebuddy.com/pricing?a=Toolman

This is the Chrono Rat Alert. Civil defense information will be broadcast at 640. West of the Rockies, you're on the air. Hello. Y2K, how can we prepare? Stop a few of their machines and radios. Throw them into darkness for a few hours. We are fighting for our lives. My family must survive. Over five years.

A thousand gallons of gas. Air filtration, water filtration. Coming at you from the frozen tundra that is east-central Alberta, Canada. Streaming live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Rumble, and Odyssey. Welcome back to the workshop where we create community, find freedom, promote preparedness, and share success. I am Toolman Tim. Today is November the 28th, 2023, and this is episode 403 of Workshop Radio. How the hell is everyone out there this fine day? We are going to forego a lot of the pleasantries because I have got an incredible guest eating M&M. No, not really. He's in the green room. Just kidding, folks.

But we're going to bring him on here. Mr. Franklin Horton. Just give me one moment. How are you, sir? I'm good, Tim. It's good to be here with you. Thank you very much for what I don't know how much you know about our community here, but we are big fans of the post-apocalyptic fiction genre. We even have a post-apocalyptic book club. So we always love to get the authors in the hot seat to pick your brain. Sounds great. Those are just the kind of people I like to talk to.

Excellent. So, you know, it's kind of cool, but you sent me a quick little blurb back via email. Cool. But you sent me a quick little blurb back via email. And it turns out that we have some kind of work history and kind of hobbies in particular, like kind of you and I share. So I always love to start out with folks to get their kind of background. But just tell me where you came from and what we love to hear. What was your first job, first paid job back in the day? I worked in radio. I was not a DJ, but I was mostly a technician. I worked playing tapes of pre-recorded shows. I played NASCAR races. I played ministers who would come in on Sunday to do their shows.

So it was in the old days when you had analog boards and all that stuff. But yeah, I did that for a couple of years. Nice. And where'd you grow up and where'd that kind of trail lead? I grew up in the southwestern part of Virginia. I'm about 20 minutes from Tennessee, about 20 minutes from North Carolina, about 30 minutes from West Virginia. So I'm in that little corner. It's part of the Central Appalachian Mountains. So it's kind of an area where I grew up around a lot of hillbilly people who had, you know, traditional Appalachian habits.

You know, it was the kind of place where you drive around and you see people changing engines on the side of the road with the tripod logs and you'd see people hanging hogs and, you know, doing all the same, you know, primitive stuff like a lot of people don't do these days. And you ended up and you stuck close to home. You went to a university in Virginia, did you? Yeah, I stuck close to home for a while. I ended up going to school in Richmond, Virginia, which is about five hours from here. Came back to this area and worked a couple of years, but I was kind of in a job. I worked myself into a corner where there was nowhere to go, so I quit, moved to Detroit, and worked in construction for a couple of years.

Enjoyed that because I learned the basics of the trade. And then, you know, from that point forward, I always kind of had a foot in construction or home building. Had worked in a government agency eventually in charge of construction and maintenance. But on the side, I had my contractor's license. So I always had renovation projects, building houses, commercial construction, doing things on the side because I love construction. And you said you've, I want to call it retired. I mean, you're probably working harder than you ever have, but you built your dream shop and you're a full-time author now.

What kind of stuff are you working on in your workshop now? You know, it really has turned into a dream job. I work a lot of hours, like I said, but excuse the hacking. You are good. Don't worry one bit yeah so my shop is kind of a wood shop metal shop i have welders plasma cutters a milling machine metal lathe all that but also have table saws band saws all that stuff i'm just as likely to have a vehicle in there as a chicken coop or uh you know, whatever. So I'm always doing some kind of project in there.

And in the winter, I keep it heated. That's my place to go hide out and take a break in the middle of the day and kind of relax my brain. So I got a question for you that's going to kind of set the tone for the rest of the interview. It's really important. So DeWalt or Milwaukee? I prefer DeWalt. Good man. rest of the interview it's really important so uh dewalt or milwaukee uh i prefer dewalt uh i've used milwaukee tools uh in construction but there is just such a variety of tools uh that dewalt offers now and years ago uh you know a lot of these battery-powered chainsaws and things like that were ridiculous uh you know, didn't accomplish anything,

but I've been so impressed with the new generation of battery powered tools. You know, I have, I have the DeWalt Limb Saw. I have the DeWalt Chain Saw. I have tons of DeWalt tools and I'm really impressed with the quality. I've, I've gone through a lot of them, but I've got the use out of them too. That DeWalt Limb Saw, that was the first. I think that's what got me into using the cordless kind of landscaping gear with DeWalt. That thing just blew me out of the water every time I used it.

Yeah, sometimes I'm out and I'm not going to be cutting a tree, but I need to cut some limbs out of the road, or I need to cut a tree that's getting too close to the vehicles or whatever. And, uh, those little chainsaws are perfect for that. I, um, a lot of times when I get guys coming on, I'll go back and I'll listen to, I'll cheat a little and I'll listen to one or two interviews that you've done before. And I found a good one. And what I loved about was from about five years ago. And you said, I think it was 2017. You said in two years, your goal was to be, uh, not working for the man anymore, retired and writing five to eight books a year. It's kind of a loaded question, but how's that going for you? You know, it depends on, uh, because some years I get six published and some years I may get four or five published.

It just depends on when on how long, because like my Mad Mick books take like a month longer than my Borrowed World books. So they kind of throw me off schedule. The Borrowed World books I can write entirely out of my head. schedule. The Borrowed World books I can write entirely out of my head, but Mad Mick, I'm constantly doing some kind of research on like, you know, how certain functions of an MRAP work, or how you repel out of a helicopter, or how you do this, or how you do that, and that adds like two, three, four weeks to the writing time. I was going to ask you a bit about that too, because there's got to be a ton of kind of research. I was going to ask you a bit about that too, because there's got to be a ton of kind of research. I was thinking when I was asking this before, when I was thinking for the Mad McBooks themselves, there's a fair bit of military kind of stuff in there. And do you have

any military background or not really? No. I've been blessed though, that through the Borrowed World books, I've developed a huge network of people who are able to answer any question that I would have. So I don't have a military background, but I have a wealth of advisors who can tell me just about any obscure question. I have lists of mechanics. I have lists of intel people. I have lists of armorers. So any question I come up with, somebody can answer it for me. So you went from, you did, that was an English degree. Is that, did I get that right? Yes. And, uh, you kind of worked in construction a bit and then you became a, basically a 30 year old overnight success. Is that right? 30-year-old overnight success. Is that right? Yeah. I think that my goal was actually to become a successful author by like 25, and I was off by about 20 or 25 years. So I did it by 50,

but I didn't do it by 25. But I was one of those kids who grew up reading Stephen King books, and he kind of made writing seem cool because before that, I'd never read an author that I thought was, you know, I'd read some good books, but I'd never seen an author that made the life look interesting. And he kind of did. He was living a rock star life. And I thought, man, that's what I want to do. And I thought, man, that's what I want to do. Make up stories, you know, have my day to myself to kind of work at my own pace. You know, it's a long day. I work more hours now And I think my first real book I read might've been bag of bones. I'm not sure one of his anyway, but what, what's your favorite Stephen King book? I really liked the stand just because it's so long and so in depth and you know, not, not everybody can create a world that's that in depth and, and you can just lose yourself in it for weeks.

And I started reading Stephen King probably about not long after Carrie came out. So it was late 70s. So I was at that age where we were waiting for the next book, the next short story book or the next novel or whatever. So, uh, I think I have all of them. So any, any particular short story that you're fond of? I don't normally go this deep with Stephen King on people, but you mentioned short stories. So, you know, I can't remember the name of it, but in that first collection that he published night shift, which was a collection of short stories that were mostly published in adult magazines. There was a story about this kind of abusive dad who was a jerk who laid around drinking beer all the time. And he drank a bad can of beer that kind of turned him into this slimy monster. And I just thought that was interesting that, you know, it wasn't that it was that

well-written. It was just the idea that Stephen King could take almost anything, you know, that he could be sitting on the couch staring at a beer and thinking, I could write a story about that. You know, it was that ability to just pull from everything in his life that I thought was interesting. to just pull from everything in his life that I thought was interesting. What about other kind of post-apocalyptic fiction, that sort of thing? Did you have any of that you're reading or any inspirations into your work now? When I was younger, I was more interested in the kind of survival outdoor stories, you know, lost in the wilderness, you know, crashed plane, lost backpack and anything like that.

You know, somebody lost in the woods, having to survive. There was a good story, Lost in the Barrens by Farley. Yeah, good book. That was one of my favorites. I read that book over and over again. And it's basically a young adult story about, uh, two kids who are kind of lost. And I guess it was Canada or Alaska somewhere.

It was in the Arctic. Uh, but those types of books were really inspirational to me. I really liked that, uh, that desperation aspect. So kind of during that couple of decades that you went from college to full-time author, you wrote, was there seven or eight books in there that maybe just talk a little bit about,

because I'd love to hear your thoughts on where the industry's gone in that time and how hard it was to get into the big boys club back in the day but what did you do to try to get published back in the day yeah that was really frustrating because when you when you went to school for an English degree all they pushed was literary fiction if you wanted to take something like horror writing or science fiction writing or any type of genre literature you wanted to take something like horror writing or science fiction writing or any type of genre literature, you had to take a weekend workshop and they treated you like a pariah for even wanting to go to something like that because it was so looked down on to write anything that was, you know, mass market. And so all they pushed was this literary fiction. And of course, one of the things

I know now is most authors who write literary fiction are still having to teach college or do something else because you don't make any money at that. You know, it was people like Harlan Ellison and these science fiction writers who were cranking out book after book. Louis L'Amour, you know, who were writing books that people enjoyed reading and they were selling lots of books. Those were the authors who were making a career out of this. So I wrote six or seven books before I knocked that literary fiction out of my head. And I never published any of those. They're horrible. I probably wouldn't publish them now. But eventually I realized, you know, I don't like to read this stuff.

So if I don't like to read it, why am I wasting my time writing it? Post-apocalyptic fiction was what I was enjoying at the time. And I remember listening to an interview with the author Joe Nobody. And he was saying, we're desperate for authors in this genre. He said, there are so many readers and they're hounding us for more books and there are not enough authors here to write. So I'm like, you know, I like writing this. I'm going to try to like reading it. So I'm going to try to write it.

So I ended up writing a book that was completely from my own life. The Borrowed World was about me, my family. I only included gear that I owned. I included my neighborhood, my house, my friends, my co-workers. Everything was true to life. It was even my job and the situation that I found myself in twice a month where I was making this journey a couple hundred miles to go to these meetings. And it was during that post 9-11, post Katrina period where, you know, I remember watching the Katrina hurricane, the Superdome, these businessmen in the Superdome with their briefcases in their suits with bodies around them thinking, you know, I don't ever want to be that guy who was so unprepared that, you know, I'm stuck there in this situation that I have no way to get

out of. So I just started taking my backpack with me on these work trips because I was into backpacking and camping and hiking and all that stuff. So I just started taking my backpack with me and I thought, well, you know, So I just started taking my backpack with me. And I thought, well, you know, if I get stuck in Richmond for some reason, I'll just walk home. And that was the genesis of the whole borrowed world story. I just, as I was making those drives, I was thinking in my head, you know, okay, what happens if I get stuck here? What happens if I get stuck here?

So I tried to use realistic geography. I tried to use realistic geography. I tried to use a realistic landmarks. I tried to make it as accurate as I could. I got that. I want to pick on the genre side of things for a minute, because what I love to be, you mentioned guys like Louis L'Amour, and I mean, you can literally pick up his books at, well, some won't even take them because there's so many of them, you know, but at just about any used bookstore. So what would you say to people who say that his fiction became kind of a commodity? Because what I love, I love what you say,

you're giving people what they want. And so often, like you said, the university side of things just becomes this self-perpetuating system where we talk about writing this and really the only thing you can do to work is teach other people how to write literary you know criticism and that sort of thing so if you had somebody kind of fresh and green going into the system would you tell them to embrace genre fiction absolutely because uh you know the thing that the best compliment, and this is kind of what has helped cement to me in my brain that writing for a mass market is the way to go, is because the best compliment I've ever gotten is from people who say, you know,

I never read a book in my life before I read your book, or I never enjoyed a book before I read your book, or I never wrote an author before I read your book. And that happens at least once a month that somebody reaches out to me and they're like, you know, this has introduced me to something that I never before enjoyed. I read your book and it's kind of led me to read other authors in this genre. And now I've got this thing that I love that I've never done before. And I don't think you get that with literary fiction. You know, I like reaching people who have time on their hands to read and who want to learn and experience these stories, that to me is just the best audience in the world. The people who really get something out of it. You know,

literary fiction is about shredding the newest book. You know, they're not out there to praise each other and pat each other on the back. It's brutal criticism. It's just not a welcoming thing. And as a post-apocalyptic author, you know, I've had great experiences with my fellow authors. I've really enjoyed that. We're a supportive group. And, you know, I have post-apocalyptic authors that are among my best friends in the world now, and we've just been really supportive of each other. Were you part of that post-apocalyptic army or something along those lines? Yeah, we did that for a while. I'm not part into that group is bringing their readers.

So, you know, you end up with there were 12 authors. So we ended up with the accumulated readers of all 12. So that was a good thing for a while. But then after a while, it just became a little too time consuming and was cutting into my writing so I kind of shifted to a different type of promotion so when you talked about kind of gendering down or you know like in in the YouTube parlance they say niche down you know find your niche that works and then build an audience around that how long did it take you to find the formula that worked in the books? And once you had that formula, do you

kind of repeat it? I got really lucky that the borrowed world went into a very hungry market at a time that people were desperate for those books. The Borrowed World ended up reaching, I think, number one in dystopian and number two in post-apocalyptic. And then it kind of lingered there for a while. It still sold really well. But then it shot up to number one again a few months later. So I was really lucky that that first book found an audience. But what changed is that first book, The Borrowed World, I wrote at my own pace. There was

no expectation. There was nobody hanging over me saying, when's the next book coming out? And so instantly my life changed because I started getting hundreds and hundreds of emails, messages from people saying, when's the next book going to come out? So I was instantly jumping on this treadmill of, you know, okay, I've got to write another book now. I've got to kind of think where this story goes from here. So I'm still on that now, you know, except I've got multiple series.

So I'm thinking, where does Borrowed World go from here? Where does Mad Mick go from here? Where does Mad Mick go from here? Where's this series, this series, where do they all go? So, uh, I mean, I, that's a good problem to have that people enjoy your books, but I think I really got lucky that the Borrowed World came out at a good time when people were looking for that kind of story. So where does your creative process go? How far ahead do you kind of plan the books and do you outline them or do you come up with a character first or where does that lie for you?

Mostly now I'm writing within existing series. So I'm not really starting any new series at this point. So I kind of know my characters. And I know I've learned them because some series like The Mad Mick, I'm 10 books deep. The Borrowed World, I'm 10 books deep. So I know these characters well. So what I do is I kind of sit down before I write it,

and I write one page kind of of what what's going to happen I have tried doing very detailed outlines and what I've found is that I quickly start to deviate from the outline because what happens is sometimes this little character you've created who's kind of a minor character becomes really interesting and you're like well you know that person needs to come forward because they they're really wild or they've got a lot to say or they're, they're interesting. So I've kind of learned that I can outline the first half of a book and beyond halfway, it's wherever the momentum carries you. Okay. Do you you when you talk about certain interesting characters it's a question i've been meaning to ask an author for a while and i've never got around to it

but is if there was one i guess one character in any of your books that you'd go back and maybe write a prequel for or like do a background story i don't know if you've ever considered that but is there ever is there one character you'd love to go back and explore what happened to them pre-apocalypse? Yeah, the Mad Mick, because the story of the Mad Mick picks up after the apocalypse. Locker Nine, Borrowed World, Mad Mick are all within the same fictional universe. The same disaster puts each of those stories into motion. So the Mad Mick is the one who has this crazy story of what his childhood was like and what led him into this world that he's in because he's an assassin. He's a government contractor. he's a government contractor and his whole story of how he became a government contractor took place before the apocalypse. And it's just a,

it's a crazy, crazy story. And I do hope that one day I'm going to have time to go back and write that as a non-apocalyptic book talking about his childhood and how he ended up where he did. I would, I would love that. Nobody that I know of yet has taken one of their characters from kind of an ongoing post-apocalyptic and gone back pre-apocalyptic, but I would love that.

Yeah, Mad Mick would be a, man, he'd be a riot to hear some of that stuff. Well, you know, it's easy for me to write Jim Powell in The Borrowed World because he's very much based on my own life, my own attitudes, my own feelings, my own life. But the Mad Mick kind of took on a life of his own. I hear him talking in my head when I'm writing these books and he's feeding me these lines, you know, you know, the because he says some crazy things things that it's like I can hear him in my head saying it in his voice, and it just becomes, I'm writing it down, and I'm cracking up at it, and, you know, the other people in my house are like, why is he in there laughing, you know, as he's writing?

But it's a bizarre process writing those books. Those books are entirely different than anything I write because they have kind of a life of their own. At what point did you kind of decide that all of these were going to be intertwined? Because at some point in the World World series, it might be between eight and nine. I can't remember. All of a sudden it jumps into the middle of something and I'm like, I had to go back. Did I miss it? And then I go to your website and it's like reading order. And I'm like, okay, so there's a whole

another affiliated series. I didn't know about the mad BIC. So how did that come about? Did you kind of tie it all in as you went or what happened? You know, it's a funny story. The most requested book ever was for some of these worlds to cross over. I mean, that, I got bombarded. I had hundreds of messages asking for that to happen. And it turned into the biggest disaster. I mean, it's interesting that those stories interconnect. But what happens is I didn't realize there were so many readers like you who were working your way through one series.

And then you're suddenly like, wait, wait, who are these other people? And why is there this backstory that I don't know about? So it became difficult. No matter where I posted the information, my website, Amazon, wherever, I wasn't able to get it out to everyone. So, you know, that caused a lot of confusion. But when I first wrote The Borrowed World, and I was going to some of the prepper shows, there were a lot of people who were like, you know, I understand the Borrowed World situation. I understand being out on the road and being stuck, but I'm more concerned about my child than myself. So that inspired me to write the Locker Nine series about a father and his,

whose child was away in college. And it seemed logical to me to set it in the same disaster because I was much more concerned about this domestic terror attack than an EMP or some other type of disaster. And I still am. But I really wanted to kind of continue showing that collapse event, that terror attack that caused the cascading systems of failure. I wanted to show it from a different perspective. And then the Mad Mech became the same thing. It became a way to show that same event from a third perspective.

So I enjoy doing that because the borrowed world is like, how does it affect the individual person, the individual prepper? But the Mad Me Mick is more a global perspective because he's seeing the politics. He's seeing the political and the global picture. So that becomes a whole other way to see the same disaster. When the Mad Mick has the little bike, when his bike breaks down and he stops and he gets a tire and i finally figure out who gives him the uh the the the scavenged tire i think i might i was probably driving i listened to everything of yours audiobook and i'm pretty sure i hollered out loud and i was like well shit

yeah i like those little connections like that uh Like even in the later borrowed worlds, there's a scene where he's going through the mountains and he sees the Mad Mix logo carved on a sign or carved on a tree. And just those little touches where the worlds brush against each other, I think, are interesting for readers because they're like, ah, I know that. each other, I think are interesting for readers because they're like, ah, I know that. You, okay. There was a question in one of our groups from earlier. I had, I wanted to throw it in here before I forgot. The Locker Nine series, was that originally supposed to just be a standalone book or was it always planned to be a series? I planned to write it as a series, but it was going to be a short series. The plan was that it would never continue. And the reason for that was kind of a marketing thing, because there are a lot of people who will not read a series that's ongoing.

They don't want to get stuck having to wait for the next book. So they want a series that's complete. So what I decided was I'll write the Locker 9 series, and it'll just be a couple of books, and then I won't add on to it anymore. Because Borrowed World may go on forever. It may go on as long as I do. But Locker 9 is never going beyond those four books. I don't think. Okay. I appreciate it. Yeah. Cause so as soon as I finished the borrowed world, I dug in,

I was like, okay, I need to find the next series. So I get into the locker nine series and I think it's in the first book. All of a sudden the character comes up with a rather strange name chin. And I thought, thought i know a chin there's no way that that's unintentional so i reach out to him and i'm so for those who don't know and listening it turns out that chin's a mutual acquaintance of ours a mutual friend and so i said hey chin can you put me into contact with franklin horton because i'd love to have him on the show and that's where i love community so you ended up throwing his name. How did that come about? There were some different online communities that talked about post-apocalyptic books right about the time The Borrowed World came out. And some of these groups had chats, and then there

were podcasts where authors were being interviewed. And I think Chen and I crossed paths that way at first. And then we ended up meeting, I think Prepper Camp may have been the first time that we met, which is an event in North Carolina, which is kind of a social educational event for people who are in the preparedness survival community. And that's where he and I met, but we had known each other online probably for a year or two at that point. And one of the things I do is sometimes I name my characters after people I know, just kind of as a little shout outs to friends and acquaintances. Also, you know, I do the same thing with post-apocalyptic authors. You know, some of my author friends have become psychos, serial killers, bit characters in my books.

Any you want to give away? Well, like Boyd Craven is one. Boyd Craven and I have been friends for a long time. And yeah, I made him a psycho in, i think it was borrowed world uh three maybe uh there's a boy character who uh is released from a mental hospital and he's yeah that's the one where the the one lady from work uh yes jim co-worker and yeah so the okay you said jim Yeah. So the, okay. You said Jim from the board world has a lot of you in him, but, and I know you're influenced by Stephen King. So as soon as I read locker nine and Robert is an author,

how much of that is kind of autobiographical? Not so much that character as Jim. Jim is very much autobiographical. But what I decided was when parents started talking to me about, you know, I'm really concerned about preparing for my child who lives in this city or who's going to college or whatever, I started thinking, well, how would I do it? So part of how my mental exercise of how I would do that was to consider as an author

living in a small town, what would I do? So I modeled that character kind of after myself, but personality wise there's really not a lot of resemblance there. I think I'm a lot, I'm much more Jim than I am Robert. I think I'm a lot, I'm much more Jim than I am. Robert. Yeah. Trust me.

I got to go back. I write names down all the time. I forget. So when, cause it was two or three times that folks asked Robert, they're like, you're not really what you portray in your books. Or in other words, there was people who were maybe disappointed that you weren't quite as a hard ass prepper as they thought he might be even though he was really good was there some kind of a nod there at all yeah absolutely because uh you know people have different expectations and uh

you know i don't always know what they expect but that was kind of poking fun at myself. You know, that was, yeah, that was a jab at myself. And that happens because it's become kind of a running joke in a lot of the borrowed world books. You know, that Jim is kind of quick on the trigger sometimes because he's not a people person. And that's become kind of a running joke because I have author friends who say the final book in the series is going to be called Jim Powell Kills Everyone. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of that is because there are a lot of people that relate to that character.

I mean, of anyone I've ever written, there are so many people that message me and say there's a lot of Jim in me. Well, you know, it's funny. Cause I mean, I love people, but man, sometimes it's somewhere between, you know, it's like either get along with them or you don't. Now I get it. I get it. So you've got, um, Kevin Pierce is the, uh, narrator or the, the guy that reads the audio books. Did you choose him from the beginning or how did you know how that came about? Yeah. I chose Kevin. The way that works is I was also an audio book listener and I had listened to Glenn Tate's 299 Days series, which Kevin had also done. And so when I released my books, I wanted to do audio. So I was accepting auditions and Kevin auditioned, which is kind of a digital process. You know, they send

you a message with some samples and I'll listen to that. And I'm like, that's the 299 days guy, you know, he's already got an audience. So I ended up using him and he has gone on to become kind of the uh the biggest name in this genre you know do um so do you how does that work now do you does he does he kind of have first right of refusal to get him to do it so that you always have the same voice as long as he's able i've learned that if you switch narrators mid-series, it kind of kills it for people because they associate that voice with that story and with those characters.

So Kevin and I kind of have just, at this point, a gentleman's agreement that we will continue all these series we do together. But he and I are good friends, so we have a good working relationship. And, uh, and I think as long as I do those series that he's involved with, he'll continue to do them. I had, uh, William Forsten on here quite a while back there from one second after. And, uh, he switched, I, he, anyway, his, his audio for the first book. And then he went to

Bronson Pinchot for the next few. And I asked him, he said, do you know why they swear? I don't have a clue. We didn't care a bit. So I appreciate you putting that into it for sure. The difference is he is with a big publisher, and I control 100% of my process. So I pick my narrators, and I control everything. So you are an independent publisher at this point?

Yes. Yeah. So how important is that to you? Because I love that you bring the entrepreneurial aspect to everything that you do as well. So how important is creative freedom to you? And would you ever consider going with a publisher at this point or no? Not really, because there are benefits to it. But the truth of that matter is that commercial publishers don't really support 99% of the authors that they publish.

Each year, they pick two or three big names in each genre. Like, they'll pick Jack Carr in thrillers, or they'll pick Tom Clancy, or they'll pick, you know, whoever. And those are the people they put all their money behind. And most of the smaller authors are still having to work their day jobs. They're not really able to support themselves as an author. There are more independent authors who are full-time authors than trade published authors. You know, the people who are with the big publishers are making less money and are less likely to be able to be a full-time author. There's, there's the, I mean, you get eight to 12% of sales. If you're with a big commercial publisher,

depending on what format I'm selling, I get 50 to 70%. So I don't have to sell as many books to support myself. Yeah, I guess, I mean, I thought I, yeah, I preach the gospel of entrepreneurship all the time, but so I'm going to kind of turn this around. If you were to tell someone that was looking to start out and wanted to be an entrepreneur in being as being an author. So genre down and independently published with those. Were there any other things that you would say for sure? I would say a hundred percent independently publish. The problem, excuse me, is a lot of people don't want to have to do the promotion and

the advertising. Well, nobody does, but you know, that that's not what we like to do. We like to tell stories. We like to write, but if you can master that end of it, you know, you're able to make this into a real business. You know, I spend probably 50 to 60 percent of my time writing, and the rest of the time is on the business aspects. You know, it's, it's networking, it's promotions, it's writing ads, it's running ads. You know, I have to spend a lot of time writing ads and spend a lot of money on advertising. And that's just part of it being a business. Do you, um, do you outsource anything at this point or do you do everything yourself

still? I outsource editing. Okay. I outsource covers and that I outsource narration. That's pretty much it. Okay. Where do you, I don't know if you can tell me this, but where do you get your covers done? Is there a certain company that does that? Because I notice, especially in the kind of post-apocalyptic fiction genre, there's kind of a certain look to the books, you know, and it's the same doing a YouTube channel, you know, guys who review off-grid gear, their thumbnails have a certain look. So how does that go with that process? When I first published, there was not kind of that standardized look that there is now. But there are a lot of people that publish that make their own covers.

There are a lot of companies that design covers. I chose a company called Deranged Doctor Design that is out of Serbia. And the reason I chose them is because it's an actual office full of designers and there's, you know, a dozen people work there. So I knew people before who had had issues where they hire somebody to make a cover and that person has a health issue or something and they don't get their cover. I'm using a full office full of people. So if some guy can't finish my cover, you know, his coworker steps in and takes over the project. So I've never had an issue with not getting a cover for some, you know, personal issue,

but I have stuck with them the entire time. I have a really good working relationship with them. I think they have played a large role in kind of standardizing that cover that you see now with those certain cover colors and that bold design. But a lot of people can do that style of cover now, but I've just had great experience with those people. I think they're really good. Nice. So any, any plans to kind of expand? I think you've got, is it maybe a military or I haven't gotten that far in your reading yet, but any plans to expand into other genres at all? I really like doing action thrillers, military-style thrillers. Mad Mick actually sells better as a thriller, a military thriller, than as a post-apocalyptic title. Every book in the Mad Mick series has hit number one on Amazon as a military thriller. So I eventually would like to write more action thrillers that are not post-apocalyptic because it seems a natural flow from what I'm doing now.

Ever have any thoughts of dipping your toe into horror since you're Stephen King buff or no? Not really. I don't read as much horror now. I like horror movies, but I just don't know that I could write it and make it believable and scary. Fair enough. I like creepy human characters. I like creepy psychos and creepy bad guys, but I don't know that I could make creepy monsters. Kind of speaking of creepy bad guys, in, I can't remember his name. I'm trying to think of it, but the, the antagonist in the Mad Max, the Mad Mix series, he is a former,

I think he's a university professor or at least a history buff. Is he based on an actual character? I find him incredibly intriguing. Just his use of, you know, sociology, psychology, history, and kind of his ambitions toward riches from, you know, during transition periods in history. No, he wasn't based on anybody, any real person, but what he's based on is kind of, in my college experience and in stories that I've read, you know, there are professors out there who really love to hear themselves talk. They consider themselves their own cult of personality. They like a following of students, you know, who worship them and like to hear what they have to say and just adore them.

And that's kind of where that character came from, is he's a person who considers himself to be an expert on everything. And he likes, you know, young college age girls kind of fawning over him and hearing what he has to say. So he decides, you know, when society collapses, he thinks back, you know, there are families that made fortunes in wartime. There are families that made fortunes in wartime. There are families that either through making arms or manufacturing or whatever, develop these generational riches from times of strife. So he sees this as his opportunity.

He's a student of history, and he says, OK, this is what I'm going to do. I am going to build my empire and, you know, eventually society will come back. But by that time, I will have built a war chest of gold and property and mineral rights. And I will be well positioned for the next part of society. Look at how many companies came out of the second world war, you know, with their pockets lined or built or whatever you want to call it. So I guess it is something that happens in the past, isn't it? Yeah. You think about banking empires. I mean, you think about even the Bush family, you know, uh, uh, Prescott Bush,

who was, you know, secretly lending money to the Nazis despite U.S. banking regulations because they were paying good interest and they needed cash. And there are people who have no allegiances in wartime except to personal enrichment. There are companies that build vast fortunes, uh, regardless of who, who, where they live, you know, they have no loyalty except to the dollar. I, um, when, when I put together these, uh, my notes for episodes, I like to go, I actually was going to get you to, I wasn't sure how much of a sport you were. I was going to dig up some of your one-star ratings on Goodreads and get you to respond, but maybe another day. But a lot of people talked about your world building in the Appalachian Mountains and

that sort of thing. How many of those, like, because there seemed to be quite a few people with mental illness and drug addicts and that sort of thing. How much of that came out of kind of your real world experience with where you grew up and where you live? A lot. I worked in the state mental health system in Virginia for 28 years. So I saw,

I saw what Appalachia was like before the opioid crisis. And then I saw what that created here, which was an entire generation of people who were living a post-apocalyptic environment. Because when you are addicted to opiates, when you're an oxy addict or, or whatever, every day is about that, that search for the next oxy, you know, which is like the search for food or the search for, you know, other things in a post-apocalyptic book. Those people live an apocalyptic life every day. So that kind of became my model for how my apocalyptic characters work.

But then the other thing that I, like in Virginia, we have our closest state mental hospital. At the turn of the century, from the 19th to the 20th, there were about 5,000 or 6,000 people living in that mental hospital because they could not function in society. But what happened in the 20th century is we developed all these new generations of drugs that were able to control mental illnesses so those people could function in society and live somewhat normal lives. But the thing is, if those medications disappear, then a lot of those people begin to experience, you know, bipolar symptoms or psychosis. And that's not to stigmatize those people. It's just a reality that our mental hospital, you know, closest to us went from 5,000 people living there in 1900 to less than 200 people living there now. So, you know, that's how big an impact.

And some of the statistics say that as many as half of the people, you know, out there in the world now are taking some type of mental health medication. And not all those, you know, not all those people have some debilitating symptom. But there are a lot of people who will lose touch with reality when their medication supply dries up or they become desperate or they become erratic. You did a really good job writing people with disabilities too, which I appreciate it because that's something that kind of gets overlooked in post-apocalyptic genre sometimes. But you had the lady that ran the camp with a wheelchair, Tom with the powered wheelchair, and then Becky. It took me a minute. That's my wife's name. I shouldn't forget it. She was blind, which I love.

Was how was that? I guess what I'm kind of getting at is was that difficult for you to write for people with disabilities or did you have any experience with that or how did you just do a little research or where did that come from? That was also an outgrowth of working in the public mental health system for 28 years because I had a lot of coworkers. It was a large agency. I had a lot of coworkers who had some type of physical challenge and, you know, some were blind or in a wheelchair or had some, you know, mobility issue. some, you know, mobility issue.

And you just saw how their experience of the workday was compared to your experience of the workday. You know, they had additional challenges. You know, they had to kind of plan ahead a little bit, you know, because some places are friendly to people in wheelchairs and some places are, you know, old enough that they're not really accessible. So working in that situation kind of got me thinking along that mindset. What about something else I think, and I think it might be hard for narrators as well, but what about politically correctness? Is that starting to hurt the creative process at all? I don't think it affects you per se, but I remember watching an interview with Rod Serling, Twilight Zone, for many years ago.

And he talked about the concept of pre-censorship and how he was beholden to sponsors and advertisers at the time and how he would not even include certain things in his books because he knew it would get him in trouble. Do you think that the modern concept of whatever woke or politically correctness, do you think that's hurting the creative process for people at all? It's definitely creating some challenges because in a lot of genres right now, it's customary for people to hire what's called a sensitivity reader, which is somebody who reads your book before it goes to publication to see if it has anything offensive. And then there's a lot of issues with cultural appropriation of somebody saying, you know, you wrote this book about an Asian character and you're not Asian. Or you wrote this book about a Native character and you're not Asian, or you wrote this book about a Native American and you're not Native American, which, you know, I have mixed feelings about that because as an author,

that's what you do is you put yourself in these other characters and write from that. But there's a lot of issues with that now. There's a lot of authors who are scared to write certain things because they're afraid of the backlash. In post-apocalyptic, it's not a really big issue right now, but you know, sometimes, I mean, I do get feedback from people who say, you know, this is gun porn or prepper porn, you know, whatever. But it was interesting that during the pandemic, I began to see, you know, post-apocalyptic generally has a more conservative readership. But that changed during the pandemic. And I began to get a lot more liberal readers than I'd had before because they contacted me.

They had questions. That was interesting. Yeah, I like that. I worry about it. I think about the guys like Kevin Pierce, for instance. At some point, I don't know if anybody's ever going to give him shit over the fact that they have to do voices or accents. Ed, when I was reading your Goodreads, some of them, some of the biggest complaints were, oh, there's no people of color in this. And I'm thinking,

which one do you want? Do you want him to have people of color? I didn't, frustrating being a creative for sure. Well, you know, when the borrowed world first came out, I read all my reviews and what I found is it caused me to start censoring myself and it was impacting my writing. So I haven't read any reviews since 2015. That's good. Yeah. And I appreciate people leaving them because it's very important. But the reviews serve a purpose more for other readers and potential buyers than for me. So I don't want that to impact how I write my story. I don't want to have that voice in my head saying, you know, oh, well, last time he did this, or, you know, he offended me with this. I don't want that

voice in my head causing me to censor myself. Do you, I got a couple more questions for him. We'll wrap up, but did, um, do you remember the first book, which was the first book you wrote when you were a full-time author after you'd walked away from working for the man? Do you happen to remember if you don't, that's okay. You know, I'm not sure, but it may have been the mad Mick. I'll have to, I don't know. It was 20, it was 20, the end of 2019. So it probably wasn't the Mad Mick. Uh, yeah, I'm not sure exactly, but I left my job in December of 2019. So whichever my first 2020 book was, that would have been it. I, the reason I ask, I don't know if it was around there or not, but I, I absolutely loved blood and banjos, which I think was book eight in the board world. Yeah. And I could see how

that was a bit of a divisive book because it took a bit of a turn. It's a road trip book, which I am a sucker for road trips, uh, in post-apocalyptic for whatever reason, but it, and it's not that any of your previous work suffered because I enjoyed all of it, but it was almost like blood and banjos took everything to another level. And I, I don't know if you did anything different because I loved your stuff beforehand, but man, blood and banjos from, I guess that's eight, eight, nine, and 10 of bored world just blew me out of the water. Well, you know, people, when they read those books, people take different things away from them. But as I write them, I have kind of themes in my head that are recurring. And one of the

themes of the Borrowed World for me is Jim was one of those people that before the collapse, he's like, man, you know what this country needs is a good reset. We need to collapse. We need to thin out, you know, all these deadbeats. We need to thin out, you know, the people who are not able to take care of themselves. And he was one of those people who wished for that. And when this happened and people he knew started dying, he felt this tremendous guilt and he struggled with that guilt through a lot of books. And then by the time it gets to book eight, that Blood and Banjos, he is struggling with the issue of, you know, I have tried to live in this world and protect my family. I've been violent and it's brought hardship to my family.

My family's lives have been put at risk. My friend's lives are at risk. Maybe I need to go away so they'll be safe. And that is a book about him struggling to come to terms with, am I going to become the person that I need to be where I just surrender myself to the violence and I become, you know, the violent protector of my family or what am I going to be? And that's what that is about, is about him going away and trying to process this in his head. You know, who do I need to be to best serve my family and my friends in this time? Because, you know regardless of of whether i wanted this to happen or not it's here now i'm in this apocalyptic world and i'm having to become

violent and so he eventually surrenders to that and by book nine uh resurgent he has fully accepted that all the people who present threats to him and his family are done. He is not going to tolerate that anymore. If there are people in the community who are a threat to him, he's taking them out. And he surrenders to that. Dude, that whole story arc from the, I don't know what you want to call it, the HOA meeting. It wasn't an HOA, but the HOA meeting that he sits in on to the standing on the roof of the RV with the plaster. And then the reset roadhouse is absolutely post-apocalyptic gold. Are we going to get more of the reset roadhouse?

Yeah, I'm about 60% through the next book of the Borrowed World series. That's going to be my next release. And it is mostly centered on the Reset Roadhouse. And by this point, it's kind of paralleling book 10 of the Mad Mix series. They're about at the same place in the timeline. So, you know, I don't want to give anything away, but very much centered on the reset roadhouse and on the next step of what they're experiencing. And do we get a bit of a taste of, I was trying to figure out the very ending of book 10. Is that Elon Musk? Is that Bill Gates? Who is that tech character based off of? It's kind of a conglomerate of different aspects of those people because all of them are rich enough that they you know, I don't care if this person can restore electricity to America.

We are not letting an outsider into our little club. We are not letting an outsider run this country and we will destroy it before we let that happen. And it's about politicians who basically just are at a standstill and unable to do anything because they can't get along and cooperate and be grownups anymore. That's a theme that comes through in a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, and I appreciate that. So where are you heading next? What can we look forward to coming up in the Bed World series and from Mr. Franklin Horton? I have a Borrowed World book that I think is going to come out in

probably beginning of February because things slow down at Christmas. It's hard to get covers and editing and proofreading and all that stuff done. So I think it may be February before that book can come out. That'll be followed up by Mad McBook. I'm probably going to wrap up my Way of Dan series next year, which is not in the Borrowed World universe. It's kind of its own thing. It's an EMP story. But I would also have a goal next year to release a new series

in the Borrowed World universe. So that's kind of on the drawing board now. A new series that will be within that world. Can you give me a hint at all? I would if I had, but I don't have any clue at this point other than what I'm going to do is I kind of have a vague idea that it's going to be about a. I don't want to give too much away, but it's OK. Yeah, it's going to follow a new group of characters roughly in the same geographic area because I like the possibility of these people crossing paths, but it's going to follow a new group of characters who have a very different

life, a loosely knit group of people. These, these are people who are not family, but they are found family. And it's about their experience of this borrowed world apocalypse and they haven't i'm not gonna i'm not gonna push you hard but they have they haven't been introduced in any of the books at all yet this will be new people that we have not heard from at all okay i was

gonna guess that it was the construction workers from detroit so that's good. You know, it's funny, but when I write these books and then I move to the next book, I put the last book completely out of my head. So sometimes it becomes difficult to go back and pick up with some of these side characters, because at this point, I've got hundreds of characters out there. So keeping up with them and what they may have done. And I've got hundreds of characters out there. So keeping up with them and what they may have done. And, you know, I have author friends who have written books where they're describing a character that they actually killed off two books ago, you know, so I don't ever want to do that by accident. Sure. That's fair. So, Franklin, how can people follow up with you?

How can they throw money at you? Where can they get to support you? That sort of thing. All my books are on Amazon in Kindle version and in paperback. They're on audio, which you can get on Audible or iTunes. A lot of people like the audio versions. Some of my books are also in box sets. So you can get like the audio version of Mad Mech 1, 2, and 3.

For one credit, you get like 25 hours of audio, which is a good way to listen to it. I'm on social media on Facebook and I'm also on Instagram. So those are kind of the ways to keep up with me. If you go to franklinhorton.com, you can sign up for my mailing list and get all the inside information. And I also have a merch store atlinhorton.com, you can sign up for my mailing list and get all the inside information. And I also have a merch store at resetroadhouse.com where people can buy Mad Mc t-shirts, Borrowed World t-shirts, Mad Mc mugs, all the good stuff. Well, thank you, sir.

I very much appreciate it. Do you mind hanging in the background for 30 seconds while I close up? Be glad to. Thank you, sir. So guys, I hope that you enjoyed this as much as I did. I think, I think half the reason that I started this entire thing was that I get to have cool conversations with people that I want to pick their brain up. So first off, I got to say thank you to Franklin for coming on and do your best to give him some support.

If you haven't listened to his stuff yet, do yourself a favor and do it. I don't know how I missed the Bored World series for as long as I did. I really don't. But Cold War Prepper is the one who brought it up first. And I thank you for that as well, because you will not be disappointed in any and all of what he has to offer. So, folks, you know I appreciate you. And as always, stay happy, stay know, I appreciate you. And as always stay happy, stay healthy and have a great week.