Author Interview With Jay Nadal

Author Bio:
I’ve always had a strong passion for whodunnits, crime series, and books. The more I immersed myself in it, the stronger the fascination grew.
In my spare time, you’ll find me in the gym, reading, binge watching Netflix or taking walks in the forest.
Oh, and I’m an avid people watcher, I just love to watch people, their mannerisms, and their way of expressing their thoughts… weird I know. It’s great, because watching people often gives me insights and inspiration for describing human interaction in my books.
Fun facts:
My favourite, bestest place ever on earth? Any of the Florida theme parks.
Weird fact:
Spending an afternoon in a mortuary to bring my books to life. Oops! poor choice of words there!

What inspired you to become an author?

I wanted a lifestyle change. I’d been a mindset coach for over 12 years and started to write self help books. However, because I’d always loved crime related films, dramas and books, I found myself migrating across from non-fiction to fiction. I also found that becoming an author meant I’d have the chance to get a better balance in life, be my own boss and challenge my brain in different ways. Now I spend all my time thinking about how to kill people in the most horrific ways.

If you could choose one actor to play the role of one of you characters who would it be and why?

Michael Fassbender was the actor I modelled DI Scott Baker on. Fassbender is tall, rugged, well dressed, with a charismatic smile. I wanted Scott to have all those traits.

If you could choose one person to read on an audible book who would it be and why?

That’s a tough one. It would probably be Daniel Craig. A brilliant actor with a great, commanding and self-assured voice.

Have you ever taken something that has happened in your life whether it be good or bad and used that as the plot of a novel you have wrote?

A couple of things.

Firstly, in my youth I spent a lot of time growing up around some very unsavoury characters (let’s just say that the police were always turning up on dawn raids to cart them away. I remember one such morning when officers took ‘G’ away in handcuffs at 6am. He was only dressed in a pair of jeans, no top, socks or shoes. His charge? Attempted murder after stabbing a love rival multiple times whilst he lay asleep).

But generally, these were guys who spent time going in and out of prison and used violence and/or intimidation to settle scores. I used my experiences to create some of the characters in my books, like the Connell family in the DI Karen Heath Crime series, who closely mirrored people I knew more recently in a crime family and a major OCG. The encrypted phones, clandestine meetings on yachts off the Puerto Banus coast, £50k cars brought for cash, cases of drugs exchanged in pub cark parks, shipping lines from Belgium, dawn raids where officers rammed the gates of gated homes in Essex etc, were VERY VERY realistic, need I say more?

The underground nightlife in Brighton, the turf wars for control of the drugs trade and establishments, and the violence that went along with it is something I witnessed first-hand. That was threaded into the DI Scott Baker books.

On the subject of DI Scott Baker losing his family. I pictured myself visiting the imaginary grave of my young daughter (morbid I know, but I wanted to inject as much realism as possible into those scenes), and thought to myself that if it happened to me, how would I act at her grave? What would I say? Etc. Writing those left me in tears every time.

You have options in publishing going self-published vs standard publishers. I am sure both have benefits. What did you start with? What do you prefer?

I started out self-published and intend on sticking to that. It gives me greater control and freedom to advertise how I want to, create stories that interest me and earn more. Yes it’s harder work, but I want to be in control of my career.

Do you do your own designs for the cover?

No, I’m not talented enough, nor do I have experience. It makes sense to leave it to the professionals whilst I focus on what I know I can do. All I do is give my designers a steer on the images, layout, mood etc. They do the rest.

Tell me about your writing process

Lots of writers start in different ways. Some start with the ending, others start in the middle and work both ways. What I tend to do is come up with an idea and let it percolate in my mind for a few weeks until it starts to gather shape. I then plot out each chapter with a few bullet points. It makes sense to me to review the flow and direction by reviewing each of those chapter summaries. Look at it from that angle allows me to spot any plot holes or loose ends that need tying up, for example, findings from forensics reports, the result of door-to-door enquiries, the searches into someone’s background.

Only when I’m happy with it, will I start to write. The fact that I’ve already got a bullet pointed outline for each chapter means that my writing flows easier. What I also do is picture each seen in my mind before I write it. Almost as if I’m watching a short movie clip. I then write what I pictured in my mind.

Tell me about why you chose to write your novels

It’s a form of escapism for both me and my readers. We all love a good story, whether real or imagined. I’d like to think that I’m able to give my readers an opportunity to forget what’s happening in their daily lives.

What is the best piece of advice you can give to an aspiring author?

Take your time and don’t rush. Don’t hop from one genre to another. It takes time to build up a readership, so be patient. Study your sub-genre and read the top 10 to 15 books in your sub-genre that are consistent bestsellers over a long period of time (not the ones that have shot to the top of the bestsellers list because an author has thrown a ton of money on advertising to get it there. I’m talking about bestsellers who remain at the top of the charts month after month.)