Nick Oliv
a (O-lee-va’) has been a musician, composer, photographer, an audio engineer, an Entertainment Director and Technical Director for over twenty-five years and is a successful self-made money manager. He has just opened an upscale restaurant for his brother called “Wyatt’s” in
Henderson, Nevada. He lives in the mountains outside of Las Vegas. You can visit Nick’s website here.
Welcome to Beyond the Books, Nick. Can we start out by telling us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?
I have my first novel entitled, “Only Moments” that came out in June of this year. I can multi-task, and I have multi-hats to wear amongst other “multi” things that I do.
The book is titled as such because of the structure of the novel. The main character goes back in time, involuntarily (can’t give away the plot) and it shows that life is just a series of moments, “only moments” that tie together as time moves relentlessly in our lives.
For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it?
I spent years coming very close to the publication of this book through the Irene Rodgers Literary Company, but as close as it was, it didn’t get published. I eventually put it on hold for years until I was motivated to attempt it once more. After a near-death experience in October of 2004, I became hell-bent to get it published.
I must have gone through 300 query letter before a major agent like Irene decided to represent me. It is almost a foregone conclusion that without an agent, you will never get into the major publishers. The market is much too tight and the amount of submissions are massive. Every person in the world thinks that they can tell their life story and with the technology today, everyone can. You are part of 3 billion + people in this world. Do the percentages. One percent of 3 billion is 30 million, one tenth of that is 3 million and one tenth of that is 300,000 and that is roughly how many books get published each year. That means you have a slim of a chance to be a part of 300,000 books that are for sale. The odds are much higher for it to become a best seller, if it gets on a shelf. Multiply that by a factor of maybe 20 if it is self-published or internet based. So, take a moment and think about that. That’s a sobering thought! So don’t get your hopes up or your expectations too high. On the other hand, do it for you! That’s who counts anyway. You did it, you accomplished an incredible thing. Don’t downplay it because you aren’t on Oprah, or the movie of the week isn’t based on your book. Life is about the little things. Enjoy them and be proud! Smell the roses.
How did the rejections make you feel and what did you do to overcome the blows?
In the beginning it is always hard to give up the ego that drives you to do the things that you do, to listen and learn from others especially harsh criticism of your “babies” the characters you create on paper. That is a very important lesson however, as you can actually become so involved that much like acting you take the roles of the characters you play and become them. For an undisciplined mind, it could create a psychosis that one actually believes. You have to keep centered and take the “blows” as you call them in stride with learning your craft. Like a restaurant, no matter how good you think you serve up a dish, someone out there isn’t going to like it and you have to determine what is constructive accurate criticism and what is emotional excess. That’s not easy if you are not grounded to the earth and you let your emotions put up walls to your neurosis intact. Many writers think that it is okay to immerse yourself into the fiction, and yes that is okay as long as you know it is all pretend. There is much potential damage it you think the characters are “real” flesh and blood. There is a fine line, but there is also a fine line between a normal person and a psychotic killer, between a Hitler and a person who seeks power. This is controversial but only because most misinterpret what I am saying. Go ahead and be the character when you are writing, when you are thinking about what to write, but they are creations of fiction, period. To extend them into real life as people is dangerous and is that isolation from reality can be root cause of many suicides and murders. Here is an intriguing story that is totally twisted because of words written and believed intertwined with the psychosis of human beings. www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/15-09/ff_internetlies
When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?
When I chose to get this book in print I chose Publish America. I could have went with I-Universe or a similar type of company and paid up front but I didn’t want to go to what I thought was a pay for publishing vanity press. After the papers were signed, I realized all the controversy surrounding the publisher and read many complaints as well as people who had good experiences. I can only say that my covers were designed with my supervision, they were my photos and they did a great job putting them together. There were typos and they did clean them up. It is frustrating to deal with them with the email only communication, but they have done what they said they would do. Many of the vociferous attacks on them have come from self-promoting authors who want to put down others to make themselves look better so they propagate threads on their websites and contribute little to the literary world. I think some of the complaints stem from people who have never been published and they want their book to be “perfect” in every way and it doesn’t work that way with any publisher. There are always mistakes. I had my manuscript edited twice and proofed twice and there were still typo and formatting errors that occurred. I think that they have published things that probably shouldn’t have reached the public, but again they are a POD and in the process of making money they have allowed acts of sloppiness to damage their reputation. I cannot fix their problems, but I wish they would bring their current standards up as their reputation is important to survive in business world. I on the other hand had a good experience, but because of the perceived and actual problems it has been difficult to get reviewed because of the Publish On Demand stigmata. Let’s face it, the publishing world has always been an exclusive enclave of “country club” mentality and this new wave of POD’s and electronic distribution is a threat to democratize the business and the publishing business has been in trouble for many years. If JK Rowling and the Harry Potter series had been published by a POD, would the validity of the writing be in question? Does the way something is brought to print affect the quality of the work? I think it is a transition from the old to the new and in the process there is pain, stupidity, and competitiveness that obscures the art for its own sake. If the stories hold up, and the literary quality is there then it should not matter. I am proud to have a book that I know turns the lights on in a room and hopefully those who read it see things they haven’t before. I leave the arguing over the way it is brought to the public to others.
Remember, it’s about money and unless you are a celebrity or a murderer or both, you have little chance of a major publisher signing you unless you are a proven commodity. Sometimes the difference between a panned novel and a successful one is sales. Money talks and however others try to disembowel you and your book, the sales of it are all that counts in many aspects. A lot of people think Donald Trump is obnoxious and classless. Do you think he cares? Trust me. I worked for him and he doesn’t care about what anybody thinks about him, he just never gives up and makes money.
How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?
The strangest things happen when things you have been wanting for so many years actually come to fruition. “Only Moments” has been laboring along for over 12 years, and now that it is finally in print my reactions are numb. I don’t know if it is my defensiveness that has taken the emotion away because of so many years of hoping without any success or if it is temporary because I just haven’t realized that it is a major accomplishment, or lastly that I’m waiting for the usual enviseration from critics who read a chapter and decide your fate based on what they haven’t accomplished in their lives (I’m asking for it aren’t I?). I could be wrong on all counts and it may be just that I’ve passed by the experience in anticipation of the new things that I’m working on, such as the screenplay for “Only Moments” and a non-fiction book based on my against-all-odds recovery from an abscessed spinal infection, and my subsequent passing over in October 2004, and my decision to return to the living world in serious pain. In any case, I hope the numbness passes and the butterflies reappear. I like butterflies. They make life worth living!
What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?
I contracted a high image public relations company and spent far too much money for their services. I got a few radio interviews but not one review, not a one. I have learned much about the saturation of books on the market and the prejudices that abound in this industry. I wish that I had met Dorothy Thompson and her “Pump Up Your Book Promotion” a few months earlier, but there is a reason and a linear progression of time that makes thing happen when they are supposed to happen. No wine is ready until its time.
Most of those published by the majors have a haughty attitude to those who are published by a POD and most have forgotten that it is about the story; it is about the writing. Most have forgotten how hard it was for them to get published. Like the entertainment business, everyone thinks they have something special and that makes getting to the right people very hard. They are well insulated from people that would inundate with them manuscripts to the point where they would get nothing done. I know. I was an Entertainment Director and threw away many a horrible tape of performances that made me wonder how people could lower themselves in believing they had talent. It’s about money not art. Can the publisher make money? That’s why they take the safe route with celebrities and murderers, like Rosie O’Donnell, and O.J. Simpson. That gossipy stuff sells in Peoria and Poughkeepsie. Here’s a mantra for all to learn. It is the mass market that makes the money.
If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published? Any regrets?
The past is wrapped up in time spent, inalterable. I think to use the Irish word, “blarney,” comes forth as an aid to shield us from the failures, regrets, and disappointments of those times. Frankly, as long as it doesn’t extend into psychotic behavior, it’s okay to regret, it’s okay to realize we screwed up. It means we grew up; we finally have taken responsibility for our own inadequacies and stopped blaming our parents (some long gone), our ex-wives and husbands, our teachers, and anybody else within a finger pointing radius. We have finally looked at the enemies of our dreams and they is us. The “old days” were certainly not the “good” old days for many; we just look back at the best of times. Perhaps if we really looked at our stupidity and mistakes our egos will come back into check and we can come to the understanding that the choices we made have dictated our present situation, be it good or bad. Experience is what is left of your butt after life takes chunks out of it. “Luck is residue of design”-Branch Rickey. You make your own game when you go after something with passion. You’re going to screw up, you’re going to fail. From that failure your character will develop. Either you pick yourself up and keep fighting or you walk away with the loss. Either way is okay. Just remember the lessons of the struggle the next time you choose a goal or dream to come true. It’s not impossible, it just very difficult, to be happy with one’s self. The next time you hear someone telling you they have a lifetime of experience to justify what they are doing now, beware. They are looking to the past to justify the insecurities of the present. There’s bitterness where there should be confidence, there’s the warning sign. It’s just another layer to be “comfortably numb.” It’s not about the past, it is about now. Right now. Get rid of bitterness, get a life and live it!
Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up? What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?
I have difficulty answering this question. My personality/spirituality dictates to me that “it is what it is, because it is.” You are here because of all you have done in the past. You can’t change the past, the future hasn’t arrived, so to me it is pointless to daydream about what could have been. That time is wasted by not utilizing it to move forward.
What has been the biggest accomplishment you have achieved since becoming published?
I have met many great people who are willing to give of themselves without strings attached. The book is new, my immersion into this world is new so any help is always appreciated. One never stops learning and one thing leads to the next, and so on. I have other things on my plate as my restaurant Wyatt’s (www.wyattsdininghall.com) trying to find time to market both the book and the restaurant, time for working the stock market every day from 6am to 1pm Monday through Friday, time to write the next book on my near death experience, and finally getting time to do the audio book for both.
If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?
Now you may think I’m crazy, but I think the profession finds you. I would have never thought that I would be doing the things I’m doing. Then again, I would have never thought the following true story would happen either. Here is the story in a nutshell.
The first Saturday in October 2003, I woke up and could not move my left leg at all. I had a fever over 102 and had my wife, Joan take me to the Emergency Room. It was there that I was diagnosed with a spinal infection, probably caused by cortisone injections. Dr. Derrick Duke -the man who saved Roy Horn’s life after Montecore, the tiger that had just about severed Mr. Horn’s head from his body accidentally at the Siegfried and Roy Show at the Mirage -was called in and he explained the severity of my situation. Far from routine, I would be fighting for my life.
I underwent a 5-hour emergency operation that and afterwards had Vancomycin intravenously pumped into my arm directly to my heart for the next eight weeks to fight off the spinal infection.
On the second day after the operation, while in critical condition, about 2 AM in the morning, still hooked up to the heart monitors in ICU, my heart stopped for 12 seconds. I experienced an out-of-body phenomena that catapulted me into another world. This happened twice while I was there. My experience was very similar to the fiction I had written in this book many years ago. Much like the character Chris, I came back with a different understanding and as I fought to come back to the living, the transition left me with a totally changed perspective. It was my life imitating my own art. I spent the next five weeks wired-up in the hospital.
The soul has energy with no specific mass. That energy must leave the body when the body can no longer sustain itself, therefore that energy must transform. This is where the metaphysical or inter-dimensional understandings take over. I can tell you, there was no St. Peter, there was no heaven, no hell, no judgement. It was a beautiful experience until I realized that I was fading into nothingness. At that point I asked for and received, a future vision of what would happen to my wife. That vision was extremely disturbing as I saw her in hysterics, crying and so emotionally distraught that I knew I had to fight to avoid becoming absorbed into the golden river that lay before me. I intend to write this experience in a non-fictional book, it is just very difficult to bring some of those memories up as they still to this day paralyze me mentally and make me very sad. Suffice to say that there were visions of many other things that I won’t go into right now. So, I forced my way back once I made the decision or perhaps I should say I was “allowed” to make that decision. One must understand that I just came out of emergency surgery 2 days earlier and I was taken off the morphine/valium drip because my heart was stopping-that left me in extreme pain. I was in critical condition and wired to ICU’s monitoring system. The cross-over was painless and took all of my pain away, so it was initially very wonderful. I knew I was going back to extreme pain but chose to do so in order to tell my wife and everyone else that it was okay to die. It wasn’t something one should fear. I had to let them know in order that if I should die again while there in the hospital, they would understand and not be so forlorn. My devotion to my wife was the main impetus for me to return even though I knew I might be spending the rest of my life in pain on top of the severe diabetes that I have to deal with each day. Much of what I experienced mirrored my writing years ago, though not exactly, but the scenes were similar. Being such a skeptic that demands empirical evidence, I asked for the charts from ICU and was shown that I indeed had flatlined during the time that I went over at approximately 2 in the morning. That night after coming back I stood next to the bed waiting for them to come in with the defibulators and they did so a few minutes later and stopped in their tracks somewhat in shock looking at me. I told them I was alright, to put them down, as they almost seemed determined to use them on me from what their machines told them. That experience changed my mode of thinking immediately upon returning to the land of the living and despite the whatever attempts I’ve made to disprove it, it did happen.
Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds?
I live everyday to the fullest with no regrets. Passion is what brought me to learn the things I’ve learned and my life’s experiences is all that I have. I’ve been to the other side and I know it is this life that counts. Come what may, passion is the key for anything one does so whatever I’m doing I’m doing to make myself happy, to create self-love-the hardest love of all. Let them talk about me when I’m dead, I’m living each day, each second happy that I’m who I am, where I am, what I am.
How do you see yourself in ten years?
Hopefully cured of diabetes so I can live another 15 years without the horrible effects of that disease. To answer your question directly read the above questions again, lol. Remember “it is what it is, because it is.”
Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?
Once published, now comes the hard part, getting it read, getting it sold. There is no one way or miracle formula. It is persistence of effort, constantly keeping alert to opportunities to promote and market you. It will cost you money and time even if you are published with Random House or Doubleday. You have to promote yourself. If you can afford the cost get a public relations firm to assist you nationally with radio interviews and book reviews (fewer and fewer newspapers even do reviews of books now). Call your hometown newspaper; try sending copies to local periodicals for review.
The measure of your success depends on what level you want to achieve. Be careful that you do not set unrealistic goals and set yourself up for failure and despondence. Take a little chunk at a time. Start with a web presence, create a blog, get your family to buy the book (a major task believe me!), get your friends to buy the book even though they expect it for free because “you are their friend.” Explain to them how they should support your cause as once your “make it” you will mention their name on Oprah’s show. Tell them anything, just get sales going before your book goes into obscurity.
Stay positive. Many people will tear into you to make themselves look good.
Accept reality. Perhaps your book isn’t up to snuff. Go back and rewrite and make it clear to your audience and target market.
Don’t assume! Never assume that the world needs another book.
Enjoy yourself in everything you do, and keep writing if it makes you happy!
Tags: author interviews, Nick Oliva, Only Moments, spiritual romance
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a syndicated columnist and political analyst. He is the author of nine books on race, politics, and social issues. His numerous published articles appear in newspapers and magazines across the country. Read his hard hitting news and opinion blog at http://earlofarihutchinson.blogspot.com or visit his website at www.earlofarihutchinson.com. 
L. Diane Wolfe’s series, The Circle of Friends, focuses on the pursuit of dreams and the overcoming of obstacles. The stories intertwine as the characters learn that with belief and encouragement, they can achieve anything. Her latest in the series, “Mike: Book IV”, follows one young man’s journey of forgiveness. 
daughters. Raised in Cheshire, Alex studied English and Philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court where she worked for a number of years. Alex will tell you that she’s thrilled to be doing what she always wanted to do, living her dream of being a writer, and a soon to be published romance author.
Marisa Chenery was always a lover of books, but after reading her first historical romance novel she found herself hooked. Having inherited a love for the written word, she soon started writing her own novels. After trying her hand at writing historicals she now also writes paranormals. Marisa lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and four children. Check out Marisa’s website at 
Ms. Baccellia’s writing credits include numerous poems published in a variety of magazines, ranging from 
CJ Maxx has always enjoyed writing, whether in the military writing citations or efficiency reports, in the private sector writing articles for trade journals, or in his personal life writing in newsletters for volunteer organizations. He turned his interest in writing to fiction in 2002. This is his first erotic romance. C.J. and his wife live in northern Alabama.
Dwayne G. Anderson was born in Humboldt, Saskatchewan on September 23, 1982. He spent much of his life in Naicam where he was raised. Diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at age sixteen, Dwayne’s experiences with being different made him into the man he is today, one who is determined to face and overcome whatever challenges life throws at him. T
