Ashley & JaQuavis: From Hustlers In the Hood To Bestselling Novelists And Filmmakers
MN: What are the pluses of working with your mate?
JaQuavis: It’s all an upside with this. I’m getting money with my best friend.
MN: What are the negatives?
Ashley: Honestly there are no negatives. We share the same passion. It doesn’t get any better than that.
MN: Where do your ideas come from?
Ashley: Our ideas come from our life experiences. We write about things that we’ve seen with our own eyes. Heartbreaks that we’ve felt. Losses that we’ve taken, and wins we’ve gained over the years. We write about our hood and struggles that you see coming up in our city. We write about real life and we never sugarcoat it but on the flip side we don’t fabricate or glamorize our characters either. We pride ourselves on writing what we know.
MN: What obstacles did you face in the publishing world?
JaQuavis: In the background we came from, business was imperative so before we ever stepped into the corporate world we were business savvy. We applied what we learned from the streets into the boardrooms and publishing industry. We rarely make a bad deal and that’s from being patient and understanding the “flip.”
MN: How did you get the deal with Cash Money?
Ashley: Baby and Slim were actually fans of our series, The Cartel. They reached out to us through one of the best agents in literature, Marc Gerald. It was all actually very smooth. We sat down with them had a meeting and found out we were very like-minded. The rest is history. We’ve been doing good business with them ever since.
MN : What are your upcoming books and projects?
Ashley: We usually drop every quarter of the year. In 2013 alone we have four novels coming out. Prada Plan 3 debuts January 29th, The Day The Streets Stood Still hits stores in the spring, Murderville 3 is the finale to our popular series about two youths from Sierra Leone and that hits stores July. Then we’re rounding out the year with Cartel 5 in October. Our publishing schedule is always very hectic because we like to keep our fans with new material to read. We are also working on numerous film projects with Baby and Slim, one of which is based on our New York Times best-selling series, The Cartel. In addition to these ventures we have started our own publishing line called O.W.L. (Official Writers League). We will be introducing some of the greatest talents in fiction.
MN: Your future personal goals?
JaQuavis: We’re venturing off into movies. That is a big deal for us. We want to do a lot of work behind the camera as far as directing, writing, and producing. Cash Money is helping us with this. We should have some great years to come.
