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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Author Interview: Yiro Abari

Today I am pleased to present to you all the 91st in a series of Author Interviews. Recently I sat down with the happy-go-lucky, Yiro Abari, and our conversation went something like this:

Paul:  I like to start my interviews by asking if you have any writing rituals?
Yiro:  Yes I have a number of online publications but just one book, titled, How to Become a Music Maestro

Paul:  What types of books do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors? Why?
Yiro:  I love to read just any type of book as long as there is something to learn and the author is creative in the choice of his topic and writing style.

Paul:  If someone had the power to step into your creative mind what would they see?
Yiro:  They will see ideas that keep passing through my mind. Some of which cannot be actualize as the environment where I live lacks to supporting atmosphere.

Paul:  What is a typical day for you? 
Yiro:  Writing has not started fetching money for me. As a result I work as a Chemistry teacher in a school. Whenever I close I spend my time listening to news. In the course of listening to news an issue could cross my mind and stir it leading to a topic that I will write about and publish it on my blog. If it is music that I listened to and it occurred to me to review it, I do that and post it on my blog for music reviews. That blog is Nightingale; http://nightingaleng.blogspot.com. If it is on another issue that falls in my general category, I post it on News Tower: http://newstoweronline.blogspot.com

Paul:  In all the years you’ve been publishing your work, what is the biggest mistake you made that you could share so others can avoid making it? 
Yiro:  I cannot remember any mistake I have made. I am however still in the learning process and pray never to make any mistake that will make me regret. I pray God to make this possible.

Paul:  How do you find the time to write?
Yiro:  My schedule is not tight actually. Any time an idea crosses my mind I just sit and begin to type.

Paul:  What is one thing you hope I do not tell the readers?
Yiro:  I cannot think of any now. Not because there could never be but because none has crossed my mind at this point.

Paul:  If you are self-published, what led to you going your own way?
Yiro:  I think this is the most important question so far. I am Nigerian. In my country there is the issue of piracy for which the authorities do little or nothing about. When my book was ready, the fact that I could not trust any publisher in addition to the issue of piracy let me to decide on independent publishing. I will rather hide my book on Amazon even if there are no sales than to see somebody making a fortune from my sweat. People involved in piracy are extremely rich and control the marketing network. It is easy for them to print and sale any book that appears attractive to the public. So I chose to self-publish so as to avoid falling victim of their greed.

Paul:  Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Yiro:  I wanted to play music and be a superstar. I was afraid of failure though. So I studied the works of the most successful artists of the genre that I like the most in other to get it right. For some reasons I could not play even after studying these artists and building my confidence on how music is made. I however noticed that other young men and women who want to go into music do not take time to study successful artists like I did leading to the difficulties they face towards making professionally-sounding music. An idea crossed my mind that rather than allow the stuff in my mind to waste away, I could share it with these persons and have my first book. That is how the idea came. I didn’t want to enrich the cemetery like some guys who died with their ideas did.

Paul:  Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Yiro:  I give the book I wrote to someone to edit. Sometimes however one still sees errors. They could be due to my tampering with what has been edited when better ways of putting messages across come passing through my mind.

Paul:  Do you have to do much research for your stories?
Yiro:  The book that I wrote involved critically listening to the artists whose work I studied. I studied the first artist to confirm my suspicions on how certain things ought to be done. Then studied many more to further make sure that what I saw in the first was not a mere coincidence. I believe that this is research even though I was not writing anything down. I was however writing them in my mind though.

Paul:  What is your most recent book? Tell us a little about it
Yiro:  How to Become a Music Maestro was my first and last book. So it remains my recent book for now.

Paul:  Do you enter competitions? Are there any you could recommend?
Yiro:  I tried to enter a competition with my poem, The Boys and the Leaves. Initially they said it was free but as I continued to the subsequent stages of sending my entry, I reached that point where they requested for $3. I needed a credit card and I did not have any at the time.

Paul:  How much marketing do you do for your published works or for your ‘brand’?
Yiro:  I have paid an organization for marketing but there is a long story on waiting until the first quarter of the year when people buy books. I have also paid an orgamoization to send traffic to my website. They are currently doing that. This is in addition to article syndication that I get involved in with Ezineartcles for which they send traffic to my site in return.

Paul:  What do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have any hobbies or party tricks?
Yiro:  Get online to read, play music and travel if I have the money to do so.

Paul:  That was great, Yiro. I wish you  every success for the future.

About Yiro Abari: Yiro was born a Scorpio, in Jos Nigeria. He found a weekly publication known as Lagos Weekend and fall in love with it. It was the first material that revealed the beauty of information sharing to him and also inspired him. He started making manuscript copies of the most interesting topics from the publication and pasting them on his school’s notice board. Many years later, his own writings started appearing on another publication, The Nigerian Standard. He is currently the author of How to Become a Music Maestro: a handbook for intending music artists and owns a number of publications online

Yiro's Blog: Nightingale
Yiro on Twitter: @abarihigh
Yiro on Facebook: Yiro Abari
Yiro's latest book: How To Become A Music Maestro (Amazon)


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