The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

How can you write memoir with deep sensory detail? How does terroir in wine equate to the writer's voice? How can you manage your online presence while still protecting yourself from the haters? Multi-award-winning wine writer Natalie MacLean shares her tips.

In the intro, initial thoughts on Author Nation 2024, photos from Death Valley @jfpennauthor, Folk horror on The Nightmare Engine Podcast, Walking the Camino de Santiago on the Action Packed Travel Podcast; Introversion and writing the shadow on The Quiet and Strong Podcast.

Today’s show is sponsored by FindawayVoices by Spotify, the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world’s largest audiobook platforms. Take your audiobook everywhere to earn everywhere with Findaway Voices by Spotify. Go to findawayvoices.com/penn to publish your next audiobook project.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Natalie MacLean is a multi-award-winning wine writer, named World's Best Drinks Writer at The World Food Media Awards, as well as a sommelier, TV wine expert, and host of The Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast. She's also the bestselling author of multiple nonfiction books on wine, including Unquenchable, named as one of Amazon's best books of the year. Her latest book is Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Challenges of writing memoir compared to journalistic writing
• Using memoir to tell your Truth
• Tips for sensory writing from a ‘super taster'
• What is terroir and how to use it in your writing
• Maintaining boundaries while still marketing your author brand
• Dealing with crisis management and managing your mental health
• How to reach and engage with book clubs
• Connecting multiple streams of income
• Utilising podcasting for book marketing in your author business

You can find Natalie at NatalieMaclean.com.

Transcript of Interview with Natalie Maclean

Joanna: Natalie MacLean is a multi-award-winning wine writer, named World's Best Drinks Writer at The World Food Media Awards, as well as a sommelier, TV wine expert, and host of The Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast. She's also the bestselling author of multiple nonfiction books on wine, including Unquenchable, named as one of Amazon's best books of the year.

Her latest book is Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much. So welcome to the show, Natalie.

Natalie: It is so good to be back here with you. We've had an initial chat on my podcast [about biodynamic wine and Blood Vintage], but I am so looking forward to this, Jo.

Joanna: Oh, yes. So first up, just—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Natalie: Sure. So my career path was probably like a lot of folks. I didn't plan to be a writer. I didn't have the confidence to be a writer. I was brought up by a single mom, single parent mom. She was a school teacher, so she really pounded it into me, make sure you get an education that will get you a job.

So I wanted to study English, but no, no. So it was PR and an MBA, and right into the workforce in high tech marketing.

Along the way, I was working for a super computer company that was based in Mountain View, California. I'm Canadian, and I still live here, but the head office was down where the campus of Google now is.

So I started arranging all of my meetings there when I had to go on Fridays so I could stay over the weekend and drive up to Napa and Sonoma. While I didn't have time to learn golf or pottery or anything else, I was dining out a lot with clients or whatever. So I really grew to love wine. So that sparked my interest in wine.

Then while I was off on maternity leave, I thought, well, I have to keep my brain active somehow. I had taken a sommelier course just for fun because that's what type As do. It was a good thing I wasn't taking golf lessons because, you know, long iron clubs and type A, that's just not a good combination. So wine worked.

So while I was off on maternity leave, I pitched the editor of a local food magazine because I noticed they had all these gorgeous recipes, but no wine content. I knew just enough about wine to be a little dangerous.

She said, yes, okay, have you published before? I said yes, praying that she would not ask me to send samples because all I had was my high school newspaper. So she gave me a chance.

The first article or column was “How to Find Wine Food Pairings on the Internet.” That was the headline back then, it's gotten much more specific since. That led to a regular column, which gave me the confidence just to cold call other editors.

Then I started landing columns in some of our national newspapers here in Canada and magazines. I didn't know anybody. I was a nobody from nowhere who made a career out of nothing.

I loved it so much that by the time my maternity leave was over, which is generous here in Canada, was almost a year, I decided not to go back. I had found something that really sparked a passion.

Wine gave me the confidence to write. I had a hook.

Otherwise I would have never thought someone's going to pay me to write. Also, I could be home with my son. So it just all worked, and that's kind of how it came together.

Joanna: Just on that, should we just be clear that you were not swigging bottles of wine during your maternity!

Natalie: Yes. No need to call child services. Mommy doesn't drink while she's pregnant. I had finished the sommelier course while I was pregnant. In all seriousness, I never took a drop, and that remains the health guidance.

There are a lot of tips in my book about cutting back on drinking. I didn't mean to write a self-help book, but it kind of turned into that for some people. Definitely, no, I was not swigging. I was not giving my little guy Pinot Noir early on.

Wine just touched all my senses. I often say you could do a liberal arts degree with wine as the hub because it ties to all facets of human endeavor. History, art, religion, commerce, science, war, politics. So it just fascinated me, beyond the buzz of it.

Joanna: Oh, and let's add dating and sex to the list.

Natalie: Oh yes, absolutely. There's a reason why it's a better social lubricant than, say, orange juice.

Joanna: Absolutely. That's fantastic. Then, again, just so people know, when was that? It wasn't like last year.

How long have you now been doing this?

Natalie: So my son was born at the end of '98, and so it's been 25 years. It's been a time.

Joanna: I think that's really important because what you just described there, starting out and having nothing, and now you're multi-award-winning. I mean, you are so super successful. I think some people forget the journey, and they just kind of see you now.

I mean, I'm not as lauded as you are at all, but people look at how many books I've written, for example, and they're like, how did you do that? I'm like, well, it's 16 years of doing this. So that's the thing, isn't it? It's year after year, and—

You've just added to it year after year.

Natalie: Yes, and you just keep plugging away at it, and the adage is compare and despair. The mistake that I used to make is I'm comparing my sort of back end—I know what's going on in my life—to somebody else's front end, which looks amazing. Like if you ever look at Instagram, everybody's life's perfect.

You don't see what goes on behind the scenes or how long it took them to get there. You also don't see that for every win, whether it's a book published or an award or whatever, there's like 76 losses or no’s from editors or whatever. It's just going up to bat over and over and over and keeping going.

Joanna: I think what's interesting about your writing is, obviously, you still write about wine and food pairings on your website, but also for loads of other places. You do reviews, you do articles on wine, but Wine Witch on Fire and some of your other books are much more personal.

What are the challenges of writing memoir compared to your more journalistic writing?

Natalie: So I've always written from a first person perspective. I like to be conversational. Memoir is a whole, as you know, Jo, is a whole other animal from nonfiction, and even from fiction.

Memoir does share so many techniques of fiction. I had to learn a new genre of writing, really. That's how it felt. I had to learn about plot, and setting, and character, and conflict, and themes, and all the rest of it, and dual timelines.

All of this I did not have to do when writing a straightforward nonfiction book about wine or travel. It was so complex, and yet that's what also made it exhilarating.

Memoir is a true account, or at least the way you understand the truth of what happened in your life, but you have all these other techniques. It's a mountain to climb, but it's definitely doable, but again, you have to keep at it.

I took all kinds of online courses. I started listening to your podcast, which has been immensely helpful. So that's one set of challenges.

Then with memoir, if you're writing about anything juicy, it's probably something bad that happened to you because no one wants to write about “here's my perfect life, and it all turned out nicely.”

So, of course, I write about my no good, terrible, very bad vintage, personally and professionally, in Wine Witch. To do that —

You really have to dig into your own dirt, and be honest, be vulnerable, but also, in a sense, you have to relive what you went through.

They've done MRI scans on the brains of people who've been through a traumatic car crash, survived, but then they read them the script of what happened during that car crash. The same areas of the brain are lighting up. So you're not remembering it, you're reliving it.

So that is another challenge of memoir. You're going to have to go back into those scenes of your own life and really relive them if you want to tell it in full detail.

Joanna: You mentioned there how you understand the truth. I get quite obsessed around the word truth, as in truth with a capital T versus the small t. There are some things that obviously happened or didn't happen, but how we write about it in memoir is how we see it, and other people can see it in quite a different way.

So the example being, you and I have both had relationship breakups. I'm sure everyone has, but divorce, particularly. Divorce, I always think of it as a good example. My parents are divorced. My husband's parents were divorced.

Divorce from two different perspectives, it's such a different thing. If both partners wrote a memoir, it would be completely different from their perspective. So what are your recommendations to people listening, when—

You're trying to tell the ‘truth,' but also to realize it's not the only truth.

Natalie: So you can always put that caveat up front, the author's note that says, “This is how I understand what happened. It's my story, my story alone. It's not someone else's story.” Even though other people may come into your story in order for you to tell your story, you have to stick to your story.

So if there are parts about somebody else's life that really don't play a role in you telling your story, leave it out. Let them tell their story if they want to in their own memoir. Stick to your own story.

The other thing that I had to do was, you know, competitiveness and perfectionism are kind of the two snakes in my life. As I say, one is a cobra that will bite you. The other is a boa constrictor that will squeeze the life out of you. So I'm dealing with that all the time, trying to, during this memoir, get past that.

So showing my flaws, all my flaws. I think it's only in being very honest with yourself, and on the page, that anyone's going to relate to you.

For me, a memoir is not exactly what you did and what happened to you, because your story is going to be so different from anybody else's, but what you did with it, how you recovered from it, and so on. It's what people can take away from that story.

So just to wrap this up, I always tried to be harder on myself than anyone else, questioning myself, my own motives and so on. As opposed to a memoir never works if it's a revenge book or if you're tilting the story some way. Readers are too smart, and it serves no one, including the author.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. It can be like legally difficult, and it's not your therapy. You have to be past therapy.

I wanted to come back to something else. So you're a sommelier and you're a super taster, which I discovered when I read your memoir. This fascinates me because I'm very visual in my writing. In my mind's eye, I see the thing play out, and then I write what I see. So I'll often use the language I see.

Other people obviously hear. Taste is literally something I always forgot in books, and smell I forgot in books. Then with COVID, I lost a lot of what I even had left, and it never really came back.

Yo're a super taster. What are your tips on sensory writing?

I mean, you write about wine over and over and over again. You must have such a range of sensory details because otherwise it would get quite repetitive. So what are your tips for doing this? What is the world like when you are a super taster?

Natalie: Wow, I must say, I read Blood Vintage, as you know, Jo, and I think your sensory detail was amazing. Not just the visual, but the smell and the taste. I thought you did a great job.

Joanna: Thank you.

Natalie: So you've mastered that. So I'll answer the last question first. As a super taster, it just means you're very hyperaware of your sensory environment. I got tested in California by a master of wine. He actually measured my taste buds.

25% of the population are super tasters, and most of them tend to be women. We don't know if that's evolution because we were the ones cooking or tasting the berries before giving them to the children. Or we may just we're more practiced in it today, sensing and sniffing and perfume and all the rest of it.

It was Dr. Linda Bartoshuk at Yale University of Medicine who discovered the phenomenon. She said super tasters live in a hyper sensory world. It's like having 500 fingers rather than 10, or a hyper-neon world. It's a lot of fun, Jo.

Joanna: Sounds overwhelming.

Natalie: It is. It is. Why do I drink? Why did I used to overdrink? It's noticing everything. Without my telling him, the master of wine who tested me, he said, “I'll bet you, you remove your tags from your clothing. You don't like zippers. You have thermostat wars with your family.”

I'm thinking, that's just creepy that he's so right on. So it's just a matter of noticing, over-noticing.

So that leads me to the answer to your question, how do you get better at sensory detail?

Start noticing everything. Slow down and pay attention.

You do not have to be a super taster, you can be a super noticer, though.

I teach online food and wine pairing classes, and one of the first things we talk about is pay attention to everything in your life. So when you cut open a vegetable or a fruit, that's when it's most pungent. Smell it, taste it. Put that into your mind, give it a name, say it out loud, you'll remember it better doing it that way.

We live in a very visual culture, but we've forgotten our sense of smell. It's kind of downgraded. There was a study of graduate students, and they said, which sense would you give up for your smartphone? It was smell. We know that loss of smell can lead to depression and all sorts of things.

So notice everything in your life. I even tell them, sniff the leather furniture in your living room, just don't let anyone catch you doing it. So notice everything and then start naming it, and you will develop a vocabulary that you can call on in your writing or when you're tasting wine or whatever.

Notice differences. The other thing we do is we don't taste one wine alone. We'll put them side by side or have a flight of wines, and notice the differences. Hey, that one smells different. Why? Again, it's just about paying attention.

It's like when a movie critic goes to a movie, they don't just sit back. They've got their notes. They're making notes on plot and narrative. Just pay attention, and you'll open up your world, your vocabulary, and I think your writing.

Joanna: I think it's being more specific in our writing.

So for example—and a lot of writers get this wrong—they might say it smelled of apples, let's say. Whereas if you were tasting a wine, I presume you would say, like a Granny Smith apple, or Golden Delicious, or whatever you have in Canada.

Natalie: Exactly. “After a spring rain, and the orchard manager had an argument with his daughter.” No, I wouldn't go on that way, but you're right. Specificity, isn't that what writing's about? Like getting more and more specific so people can paint that picture in their mind of where you are and what you're talking about.

Joanna: Absolutely. So another thing that I love from the book is terroir, which we talked about a lot when I came on your show, and in Blood Vintage it's very important. I feel like it's a word that's thrown around a lot, but that perhaps some people don't know what it means. So why is that important for wine?

Also in your book, I love that you compared that to the author's voice.

Why make the comparison to author's voice? Tell us about terroir.

Natalie: Yes, thank you. There's a wine label at the beginning of the book that kind of sets up for the contents of the book, The Memoir Domaine MacLean, and then I talk about terroir.

For me, terroir in the wine world means it's a magical combination of like soil, geography, climate, weather, the decisions the winemaker makes, all of these different influences that come together to create the final taste of the wine.

I think we do it as writers. The parallel would be our word choice, like our point of view, our humor, our dialogue. All those different techniques come together to form your voice.

We often hear in courses or rejection letters, you know, “I want to hear your voice. What is your writer's voice?” I think it's all of those things that are working together and that are uniquely you.

If you picked up a book and it didn't have your name on it, or an essay, someone would know it's you. Just like someone would know this wine is definitely a Pinot Noir from California. It isn't from Burgundy. We could get even more specific than that, but that's basically how I think about it.

Joanna: Yes, I think one of the issues with a lot of teaching of writing is that often we have to self-edit. Obviously, we believe in editing, and we believe in working with editors as well.

Often when you're editing, I feel like there's something in your brain that says, “Oh, that's too me, like I should be more professional in my writing,” or, “I shouldn't say that because it's too colloquial.”

Often those are the things that actually emerge as your voice, that make you not like everyone else.

Natalie: Exactly. I like puns, even though they're supposedly the lowest form of humor, lowest intellectual form of humor. So you learn to not overdo it so that it's not one big groaner, but let a little through if that's who you are.

In the wine world, I stopped capitalizing words like Pinot Noir and Cabernet, and it was like a shock, or using contractions. Wine writing could be very stiff and jargony, but I wanted to make it conversational. So it's all those little, tiny touches along the way.

Again, it's a sense of vulnerability, of being okay to show yourself to the world. As I say these days, everyone knows everything about everyone anyway. So why not show them the parts you want without harshly editing yourself. They're going to find out some bits and bobs anyway, so why not welcome them in?

Joanna: Yes, and again, that's a longer term thing. In fact, I was talking to an early stage writer the other day, and she said, “Oh, I just won't put stuff about me online.” I was like, if you want a career this way, it's actually impossible, a long-term career. You just can't keep yourself away from everybody entirely.

I mean, you have to have your boundaries clearly, but you just can't stay completely separate. So if you're open from the beginning, then that's all good.

Natalie: For better or worse, we are all brands, as authors, as business owners, if you self-publish, or even traditional.

People want to know the person behind the book.

I keep dragging this back to wine, just because it's what I do, but when people present a bottle of wine, whether it's at a dinner party or they're asking for recommendation in a restaurant, we're fascinated by if there's a story with that bottle.

Every bottle has a story, every book has a story, but it's the person behind the bottle. Did they struggle and live in a van for seven years, and then they finally got a break, and they got a high score from a famous critic, or whatever. We want to know who made this. Where did it come from?

We don't want generic wines any more than we want completely AI written books.

It's just there's no human touch. We want to see who's behind the books and the bottles.

Joanna: Which is why I think memoir is even more important than ever. When I think about the writers whose memoir I've read, I feel like I know them as a person far more.

Whereas, to be honest, I read fiction every day—well, every night I read fiction before I go to bed—and yes, there are some writers who I follow in other ways, but most of them, I just want to read the story. I just want the book.

With a lot of nonfiction, it's I just want the information. So I think there is a difference. Memoir is the most personal of genres, really, which is why it's so challenging, but—

Memoir is also the most important for standing out.

Natalie: Absolutely, yes. You've got to be all in. So it's the most challenging, the most scary, and the most rewarding, I think, can be, for the reader and the writer, but you have to be all in. You can't just hedge it a little bit, and I'll tell this little bit, but I want to edit out that.

Joanna: Yes, that's true. Now, of course, so talking about putting ourselves out there, one of the things that authors are most scared of is being attacked online, being canceled. The negative side of being out there, of putting your head up above the parapet and getting shot at.

This happened to you in this terrible way. The book goes into it in more detail. So just briefly explain what happened. Also, more importantly—

How did you deal with it in those months of crisis management, practically and also with your mental health?

Natalie: I didn't deal with it that well at first. So what happened, just to summarize without going down a rabbit hole, is that this happened 10 years ago, but I do think the issues are even more relevant today.

This was in the heyday of aggregators, Huffington Post, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. I was looking at different sites, and there were a few wine sites quoting my wine reviews. They had invited me to be part of their website, but I declined because I had my own website.

So I noticed, okay, they're quoting my wine reviews. Why are they doing that? Then I realized they were quoting my reviews from our provincial liquor store, which is government owned. So I thought, well, that must be okay. Wrong.

So I started quoting all the reviews from the liquor board because I thought, oh, that will give my readers more context. So I'll have my review, and then I will have it clearly separated that this is a different review from another writer, just like rotten tomatoes will gather movie critic reviews.

That lit a bonfire, and allegations of copyright infringement or misattribution, all the rest of it. So I did get legal help. I sorted it all out. In the end, I was within the bounds of what we call fair dealing in Canada. It's fair use in the United States, in terms of what you can quote and how much you can quote.

In terms of dealing with it at the time, it just kind of hit me like a Mack truck out of the blue. At that time it was just before Christmas, it's a lovely Nightmare Before Christmas holiday feel bad story. No, it has a happy ending.

At the time, I thought strength meant dealing with it myself, independently, and not dragging friends and family into this mess that was happening online. I thought, I can handle it. I went for a week without telling anyone what was happening.

I was just watching these nasty streams of social media and all the rest of it happening online, in the wine world, admittedly. Still, in my world, it was a tsunami. In that time, it was about 11 days, I lost nine pounds, and subsequently I developed a heart murmur.

So people say sticks and stones will break my bones, you know, whatever, it's just the internet turn it off. But if you live online, or make your earning online, as we do, if we have online businesses, you can no more turn it off than a surgeon can operate outside the hospital.

Day after day, I drank the venom, and that was a mistake.

So the first thing was leaning on friends and family and bringing them in. Admitting this awful thing has happened.

Yes, I'm involved and partially responsible for not communicating better and what happened. I thought it would just be an exercise in shame, but what it turned out to be was an exercise in strength. That my friends and family were there to help me, to support me.

My hot buttons, what triggered me online, weren't their hot buttons. So they didn't care if so and so was saying whatever, they were there for me. It was such a relief. It was just a psychic relief.

Then dealing with the crisis, you have to do the things you need to do. I got legal advice. Originally, I was enrolled in the combined business program law degree. I dropped law and just finished the MBA, but I sure got my law degree in the end by the end of it.

In terms of copyright, invasion of privacy, suing for defamation, all the rest of it. All those issues that writers worry about, I took a crash course. So I got really solid legal advice.

Then I took steps after that to address what the people were saying online, but at a certain point you also have to stop responding. You have to block and walk. Block them, then walk and ignore them. As tempting as it is, even though what they're saying is “ugh,” stop reading it.

You've done what you can do, then you need to remove yourself. Or it's just going to take all of your creative energy out of you, and it will have a physical impact in many cases.

Joanna: I mean, for people listening, unfortunately, this is something that happened to you. You did make a mistake, but as you said, it was not legally a mistake. The reaction happened, and all that happened to you, and now I think people are like, well, why would I ever do this?

Why didn't you, at that point, give up? You're a highly educated, intelligent woman. You could have got a job again doing something else.

Why didn't you walk away from the whole thing?

Natalie: Well, first of all, I'm very stubborn. Second of all, I'm a collapsed Catholic. So I believe in suffering makes you stronger. Beyond that, I did ask friends and family. I had some conversations saying, should I just go back to high tech marketing? But I left high tech marketing because there was so much sexism.

Then I land here, it's like, oh dear, I just left Brave New World, this high tech world, move fast, break things, and stumbled into Downton Abbey. There's a different brand, a different blend of sexism here.

One friend asked me, well, you know, you love what you do, you've worked at it now for—at that time—13, 14 years. Are you sure you want to walk away from that and go back to a corporate job?

I thought, God, no, that's not me. I'm too feral for an office. I just love what I do, so why wouldn't I continue?

It was very scary because at the time when you're in the middle of a maelstrom, you don't know what's going to happen. You can't see the future. You don't know if you're going to get sued or something's going to happen. You have to take a breath, come back, lean on friends and family advice.

I was in counseling at the time. I remain in counseling. I'm a big proponent of therapy. You have to get back to, why did I do this in the first place? Why did I start writing about wine?

I love writing, and I love the sensory engagement that wine brings me. So has that changed? No. So why should I leave even though it feels like it might be safer at the time, but it's not.

Joanna: I mean, it's not at all what you went through, but several times over the last few years, I've attracted the hate for my stance on AI. I have at several times said to Jonathan, my husband, I think I'm just quitting the whole thing. I mean, screw this.

Then, as you say, the part of the community that are like, “No, this is valuable, and we want this,” it becomes part of why you stay. Also, as you said, I love what I do as well. I love writing books, but I also like technology and learning things. So why should you give up?

Also, people forget, right? So this is the more relevant question for people listening. How are things for you now?

How do you protect yourself and potentially try and stop these things from happening?

Natalie: Well, I'm so glad you do what you do, Jo. I mean, I just love following you all about AI. Unfortunately, those of us who are on this planet today evolved from probably the most paranoid ancestors who were always searching the environment for what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong.

So that's our negative bent because that's what helped us stay alive and procreate. So we are the progeny of the most worried people on the planet.

So we're going to notice the naysayers and the negativity, but you have to kind of, again, step back after you block and walk, and realize there's just so much more positivity. There's so many more supporters.

So in terms of now, I've had the benefit of this has been a decade since this happened.

As the memoirist Glennon Doyle said, “Write from a scar, not an open wound.”

My family at the time said, “Well, okay, you've done the healing. Why would you bother to write about this? Aren't you just opening the scar?”

Well, I always loved Sean Thomas Dougherty, an Irish poet who said, “Why bother to write about it? Because there is someone, somewhere, right now who has a wound in the exact shape of your words,” which I love. So that's why I shared the story, but that's why I'm also able to share the story.

I've had the telescoping of time, the lens, to pull back and to make the reflections on what happened 10 years ago from a place of being healed, so it feels safe. It's those reflections that are useful to readers. So no one wants a misery dump for a memoir.

They want to know not just what you did, but what you did with it, so that they can apply that to their lives if they're in a professional crisis or a personal meltdown with a relationship. So that's why I'm able to do it now.

Then in terms of safeguarding my health, well, I work out with a fabulous trainer. You recommended him to me, I love him.

Joanna: Yes, even though I'm in the UK and you're in Canada, we have the same personal trainer.

Natalie: We do. I do it remotely. Obviously, I'm not flying over to Bath once a week. I learned to say Bath correctly, too, on the last podcast. So physical health, exercise, sleep, diet, but also mental health.

I continue in therapy. I love it. We're never finished with who we are.

Also, just the safeguards I put for myself online. A lot of blocking, a lot of deleting comments, whatever, because that's your daily mental stream that's in there. So you have to protect it.

Joanna: Well, another tip for people. For a while, I outsourced my inbox because I just couldn't do it. I get a lot of email, and at the time, I was getting a lot of email that I didn't want to see, and it was hurting my brain.

For about a year, I did outsource my inbox, and then that person triaged and then sent me the emails that were nice or that I could respond to. So that actually helped. I think perhaps that's a crisis management tip. I don't use that anymore. After a while, that kind of died down, and so I was able to take it back.

I mean, you're on TV, and you're visible, and you're on social media. I mean—

You've set your boundaries, so you only share certain things. Give some advice around that.

Natalie: Sure, so when I go on TV, it's all about wine and fast food, or wine and Turkey for holiday dinners. It's pretty happy topics, other than when I was talking about my book, which does, again, have a lot of humor. I'm painting it as this really dark story.

In terms of boundaries, I am public, I am out there. The memoir is very personal, but it's what I've chosen, where my boundaries are. In the memoir, I did change the names of my family because I wanted to protect their privacy.

Sure, someone who's really diligent can Google and try to figure out who everybody is. So I have set up those boundaries.

Just a side note that writers might like to hear on this bit about changing names—at first, I didn't want to use the real names for all of the trolls online. So I changed all their names because I thought, don't give trolls oxygen in your book.

Then once one of the lawyers read the book, he said, “Well, you know that if you quote what they're saying from statements online and you use a pseudonym, you're violating the copyright.”

Then by the end of writing the book, I came to the full, deeply peaceful conclusion that they deserved full credit for what they did and said, so I used their real names.

Joanna: I love that. That's great.

Natalie: So that's basically what I do, is try to have some boundaries. I don't expose where I live or real names of my family. There are just some things that just are good safety protocols.

Joanna: So another thing I wanted to ask you about was you sent me this extraordinary book club guide. It's got wine pairings for the book, and it's 54 pages. When you sent it to me, I thought, oh, I'll just open this, I'm sure it's just a list of questions.

That is what I do for book clubs, which is, “Oh, here's 20 questions that you might like to explore.” You do that, but you've basically written a whole book for a book club, and this fascinates me.

What are your tips for engaging with book clubs, and how do you reach them?

Because you clearly didn't make this for no reason.

Natalie: The evolution of that was at the end of each chapter in the memoir I was recommending wines that kind of tied into the themes. For two reasons, my editor and I decided to eliminate that and put it into this book club guide.

One was, are you down and depressed and getting divorced? Here's a wine for that. It's like, okay, that's not the message that I want to send. The other thing is, it became too long. So 54 pages, 13,000 words in this little book club guide, we removed that because the length of the book was too long.

So it comes in at 75,000, which is a typical soft paperback at 300 pages, I think it is, or just under. So that made it the right length. So that's where this first developed. I didn't sit down to write a 54-page book club guide.

It worked as a standalone, I think, because it does go chapter by chapter. It gives you a wine, it asks you chapter-specific questions, but I tried to go beyond that because, again, a memoir should be relevant to the reader. It should get them talking about their own lives and what they can draw from the book.

So it asks questions like, do you feel that wine is marketed to women differently from men? How do you feel about your own relationship with alcohol? Did it change during the pandemic?

So these are all questions that can spark discussion for book clubs, especially when members don't read the books, which I've heard happens sometimes.

Also, it was interesting because it came back to me through people emailing and direct messaging that like a husband and wife or husband-husband, wife-wife, would read it together and use the book club guide as a way to talk about those issues between them.

Also daughters and mothers and so on, of drinking age, were using it in that way. So I thought that's great. So the marketing to the book clubs has been mainly through the front and back pages, or front and back matter, as we call it.

So at the beginning of the book there is a QR code and a URL, that if you scan it, it will take you right to the book club guide. So that's WineWitchOnFire.com/guide, and then it's there again at the back of the book. So that's the greatest marketing that I did for this book club guide.

Of course, you're collecting email addresses. They can unsubscribe anytime they want, but that's how I heard from a lot of people. Then I also put at the back of the book, you know, “Email me if you've spotted a typo or just want to ask a question.”

Like, there weren't a lot of typos, but I know people love to email about typos, so I got a lot of emails that way. I'm just trying to seek out engagement with my readers because I want to take them on the journey with me.

I'm not as prolific as you are, Joo, but I do believe that one of the key success factors for marketing any book is an email list. I'm on social media, but the majority of my effort is through my email newsletter because you've got that one-to-one conversation, not on rented land, as we all say.

That's been the major thing. Now, when I hear there's a book club reading my book, I'll offer to go on Zoom and join their meeting. I get a lot of book club members who read the book on their own and then recommend it for their book club, just because it has such a big discussion potential.

Then they discover there's a book club guide that will help them not only organize the discussion, but also the wine tasting. Which is, again, the reason why a lot of clubs meet in first place.

Joanna: I think that's genius, and I think we should all try a bit harder, I think. I certainly felt like, oh, I should try harder with that. I've tried to go to a book club, but I just couldn't get involved with that. I'm not a very groupy type person. So I think because I haven't been part of them, I haven't paid enough attention. Reading your guide, I was like, okay, this is great.

Natalie: Thank you. Book clubs aren't for everyone, but if anybody's listening that does interact with a lot of book clubs, I would love to hear their suggestions. For my next book, I do want to write a book that's specifically for book clubs, but I'm still trying to get my head around it, you know, with wines to taste.

Most book clubs are very proprietary as to which books they choose to read. So I'm trying to think, well, where would a book for book clubs that's recommending wines and maybe some books on the side, where would that fit in?

Anyway, so that's just an open invitation. If anyone wants to contact me at [email protected], I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Joanna: I think that's great. I wanted to just move into the business side for a minute. You mentioned that you're not as prolific as me. I don't think that's true because you write freelance articles, you write for your website every day. In terms of number of words written, I think you outstrip me like a lot.

Natalie: I definitely out drink you

Joanna: You have a business around writing and wine, so it's not just the book.

Talk us through your multiple streams of income

Because I think that's really interesting.

Natalie: So the first one would be online wine and food pairing classes. So at NatalieMaclean.com you can find the wine and food pairing classes I offer. I have an in depth course. Food seems to be less intimidating for people to get to know than wine. You know, a chicken is a chicken. It doesn't have a vintage chart, whatever.

So I bring people in that way, but also those who know a lot about wine, sommeliers and so on, also take the course. A lot of sommelier courses and so on, surprisingly, don't have a heavy food and wine pairing element to it.

It's just a lot of fun, and people get to know each other from around the world. So that's stream number one.

Stream number two is subscriptions to my wine reviews. So every two weeks, there's a new batch of 100 wines that come out in our liquor stores here. Our provincial liquor store is the second largest purchaser of wine in the world. So it's a huge chain.

So a lot of the reviews are relevant to other regions, countries, and so on. I review wines from all over the planet. That'd be number two.

Number three is advertising on the website.

The books. What else? I get paid some honorariums for TV appearances, some not. Then I also do speaking.

Lately, it's been a run of teachers organizations wanting me to speak to them. My mom was a teacher for 32 years. My grandmother was an English teacher. I taught Highland dancing. So I'm loving these groups.

It's a variety of topics, from marketing wine to women, to make your dumpster fire your superpower, getting stronger through resilience after you've struggled through something, all those kind of topics.

Joanna: I mean, this is so important because nonfiction books, in particular, having an ecosystem around the book is where you can make more money. Then just finally, you've got your Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast. I've been on that talking about Blood Vintage, which was great. I know how much work podcasting is—

Why did you start your show, and how does podcasting fit into your book marketing and your business?

Natalie: I am a listener first. In fact, I don't know if I've read a physical book for a long time. Even when you sent me the PDF, I put it up into Adobe and got it to read it to me. That's how I consumed Blood Vintage. So I'm listening to podcasts all the time. I listen to audio books. I'm an audible learner, audio learner.

Even before the rise of podcasts, I had a short wave satellite radio, and I would listen to the BBC at night because that's when the reception was best. These voices, these lovely British voices, would sweep in and out over the ocean, depending on how clear the night was. I loved listening to those.

Perhaps it goes back to when my mom used to read me stories at night, and just hearing her voice read The Wizard of Oz, and putting my hand on her forearm and feeling her strength, and the words were in the air, and then coming into me. I love all that. I love audio.

So I decided to start the podcast in—well, I actually made a few attempts in 2008, but the technology just confounded me. Then I started officially near the end of 2018 and got it up and running.

It was an excuse for me to be nosy and ask impertinent questions to people in the wine world, people connected to the wine world. It's not just winemakers. I interview authors like you, but they tend to be wine authors. Sommeliers, cheese people, chefs, anybody, but it's all about the storytelling.

So it's very much similar to what I do with my books. It allows me entry into someone else's life to ask the questions that I hope that my listeners/readers would want to ask but might be too afraid to or don't have access to this person. That's what I'm trying to do on Unreserved Wine Talk.

Joanna: People who think about starting a podcast, it's like, does it help me sell books? Does it promote my brand? Does it make me money? Because it is a lot of work, or you might pay other people to do that for you.

Does the podcast fit business-wise, as well?

Natalie: I think it does. There's a bit of irrationality, like I love to do it, so I'm going to do it. I do think that it is like having a 100-hour conversation with someone. They get to know you pretty well because I don't just launch into the interview.

There's always a preamble where I'm talking about something, perhaps more personally, like you do. I love those bits and pieces. What's happening in your life makes me feel connected, makes me feel like I really do know you, Jo. I think people love that, like it's very intimate.

So the business case though, I know that I have purchased online courses after consuming hundreds of episodes of somebody's podcast. While I don't have sophisticated enough tracking, I do believe in the power of podcasting. Not only is it intimate, but the stats are amazing.

People will listen to you for 30, 45 minutes, sometimes longer. Whereas it's considered a win on Facebook or YouTube to get a 5-10 second watch of a video. I mean, it's just so engaged. It's an engaging medium.

Those long term, deeply committed listeners are often also long term committed readers.

Whether they're reading a physical book or listening to it. So I do think there's quite an overlap, and I hope that the tools get better for measuring it.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, I think there will never ever be tools for podcast listeners conversion because, as you say, someone who maybe has listened for months doesn't buy anything, and then one day they will when they're ready.

Or I have people come back now, people will be like, “Oh, you're still here. You're still podcasting. I listened to you like five years ago. Then I gave up on my book, and now I'm writing it again.” So they've come back. I think for both of us, I think podcasting is very valuable. Insane, Nat, we're out of time.

Where can people find you, and your books, and your podcasts online?

Natalie: So you can find me at NatalieMaclean.com or WineWitchOnFire.com will take you to NatalieMaclean.com. Then I'm on all the social media channels with my name, but my primary hub is NatalieMaclean.com. You can get that book club, that reader guide, at WineWitchOnFire.com.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Natalie. That was great.

Natalie: Cheers, Jo. I'm looking forward to that glass of wine or two in person next time you.

Takeaways

• Natalie MacLean's journey into writing was unplanned and stemmed from her love for wine.
• Wine can be a gateway to understanding various aspects of life, including history and culture.
• Writing memoir requires a different set of skills compared to journalistic writing.
• The truth in memoir is subjective and can vary from person to person.
• Being vulnerable in writing allows readers to connect with the author.
• Sensory details enhance writing and can be developed through practice and observation.
• Terroir in wine reflects the unique characteristics of the writer's voice.
• Authors should embrace their individuality in their writing style.
• Online criticism can be overwhelming, but seeking support is crucial.
• Memoir writing is both challenging and rewarding, requiring full commitment. You can't just turn off online negativity; it requires active management.
• Leaning on friends and family can provide immense support during crises.
• Resilience is key; stubbornness can be a strength in tough times.
• Therapy and counseling are valuable tools for personal growth.
• Sharing your story can help others who are struggling.
• Engaging with book clubs can create community and discussion.
• Building multiple income streams is essential for writers.
• Podcasting allows for deep connections with audiences.
• Protecting your mental health is crucial in a public-facing career.
• Creating a reader guide can enhance engagement with your book.

The post Writing Memoir And Dealing With Haters With Natalie Maclean first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What is dark tourism and why are many of us interested in places associated with death and tragedy? How can you write and self-publish a premium print guidebook while managing complicated design elements, image permissions, and more? With Leon Mcanally.

In the intro, level up with author assistants [Written Word Media]; and Blood Vintage signing pics.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Leon McAnally is the author of A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• The definition of dark tourism and what types of places it includes
• Public opinion around dark tourism sites
• Self-publishing to keep creative control of book design and content
• Researching historical sites and keeping an organized system
• How to obtain permissions for publishing images
• Working with a designer on a photo-heavy book
• Using book signings and social media as part of a book marketing strategy
• Managing expectations for research- and design-extensive projects

You can find Leon on his Facebook page: Dark Attractions in the UK.

Transcript of Interview with Leon McAnally

Joanna: Leon McAnally is the author of A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK, which is brilliant. My quote is on the back, and I said, “A fascinating book for all the dark little souls out there.” So welcome to the show, Leon.

Leon: Thank you, Joanna, for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this topic, and you and I are both dark little souls. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing.

Leon: Well, I studied travel and tourism in college. That's where I first learned of this term called dark tourism, places associated with death, suffering and tragedy. I came away looking into these places and was really fascinated with the tourism aspect and the history aspect.

My university touched on this topic more, so I went and studied Travel and Tourism at the University of Northampton. I focused a lot around the motivations of dark tourism and the ethical issues around dark tourism.

After uni, I wasn't sure what to do, but I wanted to travel to a lot of the places that I'd been writing about, like Auschwitz and the Catacombs of Paris. Then I got into writing because I came across yourself, actually. When I was researching dark tourism, I think you popped up on a website. I started reading your ARKANE thriller series and looked into yourself a bit more, and I was like, you're just an inspiration.

Joanna: Thank you.

Leon: So it seemed from that, and then yourself. Then I was in Paris visiting the Catacombs at the time, and that evening I sat down and was like, what do I do with myself now? Then I thought to myself, there's no book that covers like dark tourism across the whole of the UK. So, yes, it set me off on a journey, really.

Joanna: First of all, I'm really thrilled to inspire you. I'm glad I turned up on some website, that's excellent.

Let's just return to this idea of dark tourism.

You mentioned places associated with death, suffering and tragedy. You mentioned two places that are quite different, Auschwitz, which of course, is modern horror, really. Then the Paris Catacombs, which, if people don't know, are full of plague dead, but it's bones that are arranged in different ways. I find the Catacombs an awesome place. I'm sure you enjoyed it as well, right?

Leon: Yes, definitely. It was really eye opening.

Joanna: Exactly. I think those two places are disturbing in different ways. People are like, why are the pair of you interested in this stuff? So what do you think? You mentioned studying the motivations. Why do people visit these places?

Why do you and I find these ‘dark tourism' places interesting?

Leon: I think there's a number of factors at play. It depends on the place you're visiting because dark tourism is an umbrella term for loads of places, and that's what a lot of people don't realize.

So it could be that you go to a memorial to remember people who have tragically died. It also could be a totally different place, and it makes you perceive life differently and how you wish to be known in life, as well as after life.

The Victorian cemeteries that are within my book, The Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London, I visited them. So one, they gave me a kind of inspiration and motivated me with my book.

Also, I look at the people who are buried there and how they are known after life. Like they were known back when they were alive, and they're still being known, and their story and their life history is being retold.

Joanna: I mean, you're still in your 20s, and I'm nearly 50, but—

We share this idea around Memento Mori, “remember you will die.”

By going to these places, it's almost inspiring—you mentioned the word inspiration—inspiring you on how to live your life.

Leon: Yes, that's one thing from each place I've visited, while they are different, it still drives that determination in getting my book out there and getting these places known.

There's so many simple memorials to massive tragedies. There's one in Barnsley, a memorial to a coal mine disaster, I believe it killed 361 people.

I look at that and think of the Aberfan in Wales, that is an awful disaster as well, and that's a kind of well-known disaster. It tragically killed a number of children, and that's really well known, but I feel like this other one in Barnsley should just be as well-known as that one.

Joanna: Yes, if people have seen The Crown, they show that Welsh tragedy on The Crown. I can't remember which series.

I get what you mean, like some of these things are more famous than others. For example, Auschwitz, obviously that's not in the UK, but many people will have heard of that and the deaths that went on there. There were so many other camps, that was not like the only camp, but that seems to be what people think of.

So as you say, it's remembering the past, but also helping us live in the future. So I did also want to ask, what reactions have you had around this? So do your family think you're weird? Do your friends think you're weird?

What are the reactions of people who know you?

Leon: When you're going to these places, a lot of people don't consider it dark tourism. You may just go to a castle and learn about executions and walk away, and you don't consider that it is dark tourism, but it falls under this umbrella term. So I'm like, you've participated in dark tourism without knowing it.

They do find some of the places that I visited a bit odd and peculiar. There's a place called Littledean Jail. A gentleman has this old jail, and he's filled it with a number of artifacts and newspaper clippings. It's got artifacts to the likes of Fred and Rose West, the infamous serial killers, and the Kray twins. They found that a bit strange. Like, why would you want to go there and see that? That was a very unusual experience.

Joanna: Did you find that it was glorifying the serial killers or it was more just exposing them?

Leon: Yes. The rooms within the jail, when I walked into Fred and Rose West's cell, it had belongings, like his work boots and a tie and a cabinet, and it had newspaper clippings, obviously, when it all happened. I felt like it was a shrine to them.

It was a bit strange. I was like, why would you want to have all of this on display and stuff. In some aspects, yes, you can look at it as it's glorifying these kind of infamous criminals at the end of the day.

Joanna: It's interesting that some places, so again, we mentioned the catacombs, I find catacombs where there are bones that are obviously long dead, more, I don't know, more peaceful in some way. Yet, I don't want to visit serial killer things.

So I think there are also gradations. So if people listening are like, everything's the same thing, it's not, is it?

You can visit one thing and be disturbed, and visit another and feel at peace. It's really tapping into those feelings.

Leon: Yes, there's definitely a lot of different emotions and feelings that come into these places. I definitely agree with you on that. If you go into the likes of Princess Diana's grave, you're going there to pay respects and remember her life.

You're going to feel a number of different emotions to maybe what you'd feel if you were to visit the Tower of London. You may take a tour, and that's going to be very energized by the tour guide. They're totally on different spectrums, but that's where it's an umbrella term, dark tourism, for all of these different kind of places.

Joanna: Yes, so I was thinking too whether it taps into the same thing as the true crime podcast. True crime is the biggest podcast niche, and I feel like perhaps dark tourism is similar.

It comes from a similar place, a sort of fascination with death and the macabre. It's having a separation from violence and death, like we're still alive, we're still fine, and sort of reflecting that way. What do you think? Do you think it relates to true crime?

Leon: Yes. In some aspects, yes, but it depends how recent the event is because there's got to be some underlying historical factual elements, that dark tourism element. I think the dark tourism has been getting thrown around and been used for marketing of places on the wrong kind of aspects.

Places in America and stuff, places that are haunted are marketing themselves as dark tourism. I'm like, no, it's not. It's not that. There's got to be the factual history element to be labeled under this term dark tourism.

Joanna: I like that because that annoys me as well. To me, I know what dark tourism is, but as you pointed out, a lot of people might get confused.

So let's get into the book then because I have lots of dark tourism. I guess I call them death culture, so morbid anatomy and books around that kind of thing. Paul Koudounaris, I'm sure you've seen his books, lots of that kind of thing. I feel like you could have pitched this to traditional publishing, but you went indie.

Why did you decide to self-publish this book?

Leon: I think that's where you come into play a little bit because you inspire me because you're self-published and everything. So that kind of came into play.

When I actually started looking into it with my designers, they said you could take it to a publishing company, but you wouldn't have so much control over elements of it.

That was a big thing because I was covering the umbrella term of a number of sites. I didn't want a publisher to be like, “No, I don't feel that site should be in there. I don't feel that site should be in it. Oh, this should be in there.” It gave me the control of giving a vast amount of attractions and showing what falls under this term.

Also about when I was styling my book as well, some publishers may have a particular kind of format and style that they would steer towards. I didn't want to be constrained on the designing aspects of my book, really. So it gave me a bit of freeness, should we say.

Joanna: Yes, I love that. I mean, that's why a lot of people go indie because of the control aspect of what goes in the book and the design. We're going to come back to the design, but let's talk about the research. You did mention a bit earlier that you went traveling, but this particular book in the UK, it is really comprehensive.

How did you do your research?

Leon: It took me three years in all. It was traveling to places and also working with a lot of places. I wanted to make sure the factual history element was there within each kind of place. So it was traveling to places, and working places, and also cross referencing information, really.

Joanna: How did you keep all that organized? If you visited a site, did you write notes in a journal? Did you write them on your phone?

Leon: I used notebooks, and I did use my phone to take bullet points of information. So I would read the exhibits, and if there was bits of information that would stick out with me, then I'd bullet point them.

Then I also would then go back to the attraction and say, obviously, “I'm writing this book, and I've got this information, so I just want to double check things.” That then started to build a relationship with attractions.

I just found that when I was researching, there's just so much. I didn't really want to use the internet so much because there's just so much unreliable information and incorrect information. So I made sure that was up to date and things.

Joanna: I think that's great.

How many things are there in the book? How many sites?

Leon: Oh, my goodness. There's just over 300 places.

Joanna: That's just incredible. So you didn't visit every single one of those?

Leon: No, I couldn't visit every single one. I did visit quite a few of them. I did work with quite a few as well. Up to Scotland, all the way down to the south of England, I was working with places.

When I was writing about their history and things, and when I was saying I was writing about dark tourism, a lot of places would be like, “Oh, we're not too sure.” Then showing them what I was writing about and giving them more of an in depth understanding of the dark tourism term, that helped in me gaining places. Also some places just still didn't wish to fall under that term.

There was one place that I won't say the name of, but I'd written about, and they was happy with the write, but they said they don't wish to fall under this term dark tourism because they look at it more as a scientific kind of purposes. So I was like, okay, no, that's fine. So obviously they didn't make it into my book.

There was another aspect to it is I wanted to show how society reacts to dark sites. So if it was a more memorial, how had societies reacted in the process of the disaster and after the process in remembering people?

So that Barnsley Coal Mine Disaster Memorial, there was a community that helped that disaster, and there's still a legacy of it. The community is wanting it to be known and remembered. So I felt that it was important that places like that went into my book, really.

Joanna: I agree with a lot of the places in the book, but you do have a lot more memorials and things than I would have I've. I've got the book right here next to me. I've got my copy next to me, and I just opened it. I just opened it to London.

So you've got the Hunterian Museum, which is awesome. I should say that it inspired my book Desecration. I love that museum. Then next to it is the Hungerford Footbridge Skateboard Graveyard. So I was like, okay, that's really interesting because I do know that if you walk over that bridge, you can see it. Why choose something like that?

Is that more, as you said, the response to grief over something people care about?

Leon: Yes, it's the response of the skateboarding community of what took place on that foot bridge, at the end of the day. It's kind of how they remember a local skater, that aspect of how they pull together and remember their fellow skater. They lay their skateboards and chuck them over the bridge.

Joanna: It's interesting. In the book you say, “The skateboarding community has shown how the process of grief differs among communities, and there's a need to personalize the way we honor someone's life.” So I love that. I think it's really interesting what you've done with the book.

One of the things I noticed immediately is that there are lots of pictures. I've discovered that image permissions are a nightmare. Even if they're your photos, if they're in a private place, then you need permission.

How did you manage the image permissions?

Leon: It stems back to building that relationship with places. So I'd write the piece and send it over, and they would be quite happy with it. Then I would say, I've got images from myself, or I've sourced images, are you happy for this to be featured alongside it?

There was like, yes. Other places would be like, oh, we prefer to give you an image for it to be credited. So I was happy to do that. It was literally building that relationship and saying, “I'm writing a book. I'm looking at featuring you in my book. Can I write a piece and see what you think?”

I was making sure that the kind of factual history element was correct, and then going from there, really. There was a couple of sites who were like, “No, you can write a piece, but we don't wish for an image to be featured because we don't allow photography within this space.”

So that's why there's a few places I name that have not got images because they were happy for the entry to be featured, but as they don't allow permission of photography, they didn't wish for an image to be featured within the book.

Joanna: Did you have to pay for any permissions?

Leon: I did have to pay for a few of the permissions.

Joanna: What sort of price?

Leon: It varies a lot. One of them was 170 pounds to have it within my book to get the permission, but I was adamant that I wanted that image within my book.

Joanna: Yes, you have a lot of images. I like the book a lot because it has so many images. As I said, when I looked at it, I was like, oh my goodness, I know how much pain this is. You must be very organized then to keep track of everything. Like, if you're emailing all these places, you're sending them text, you're asking for images.

Did you have a process for keeping track of permissions, or are you just a super organized person?

Leon: I am a very organized person. I get told I'm too organized. Even in doing my day job, I get told I'm too over organized because I'm looking at kind of February now. People are like, Christmas is not even here yet.

So, yes, it was emailing places, and then I'd have kind of that written permission, and I'd put it to one kind of side to keep at the end of the day. I think my designer has a few as well.

We keep them to one side because if later down the road, they were to say they don't wish for that image to be featured anymore, that's fine. We can obviously remove it and things later, at a later day.

Joanna: You mentioned your job.

What do you do as a day job?

Leon: I am an activities coordinator in a care home. So that did actually come in. It did make me think a little bit when I was writing about my book, because working with the elderly generation, history is important to them.

I was speaking to the residents, and they would tell me aspects of the war and stuff. They were so passionate about telling their stories to make sure that future generations were known and they were told correctly. So that had a bit of an impact as well while I was writing my book.

Joanna: Oh, I love that. So you mentioned your designer. So tell us, how did you work with the designer? As you said, you're quite controlling, so you must have known how you wanted it to look.

How did you find a designer and then work with them?

Leon: Three designers actually collaborated on this book together. I had one main designer, Marie-Louise, who owns the company Lovely Evolution. Then she was working with another two designers as well, and they gave me different proofs.

Then I picked aspects that I liked from different proofs, and then that was brought into one. I was a bit picky along the way of my process of designing it.

So even when I got the proofs—because there's a background on the pages, like the illustrations behind the text and the images and stuff—we only had the one proof of that. I was like, oh, it'd be a really good idea to have the sections with a different background.

So it was little bits like that I picked out and made suggestions. All three designers were very good at working together. It was just a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, as you can probably see from looking at it, and fitting it all together.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, I think my brain is very different to your brain. It is, as you say, a jigsaw puzzle. Your brain must have figured out how you wanted it to go.

As you say, there's so many little extra things. Like in the corner of each section, there's like a little illustration as well. A dragon in Wales, and different things there. As you say, different background images as well as other images. I just think it's incredible.

You mentioned there, three designers, it's took you three years, you've got all these permissions.

What kind of budget did you have for this book? Basically, is this a labor of love?

Leon: It is a labor of love because I'm just very passionate about our British history at the end of the day. With dark tourism, people associate so many places abroad, like Auschwitz, the Catacombs of Paris, Ground Zero.

I was just like, there's so much to England. So it was a very passionate project in showing there's so much more in England that's linked to dark tourism than people initially thought. There has been a budget and that has gone over a bit, I'm not going to lie.

Joanna: It does look like a pricey project, as far as I can see. I did want to ask, because at the moment the copy I have is a large scale, but it's still paperback. So are you planning on doing an eBook? I think it would work on a tablet, on an iPad or something. I think you could also do an audiobook, or a short form podcast, or a hardback.

Are you thinking of doing other editions?

Leon: I can't say too much because we are working on other little things, but the physicality of the book is an important part to myself. Like I feel like to appreciate it, you've got to be holding it.

I know a lot of people like tablets and things, and I do understand that, but I just feel like it's so heavily designed. My designers like really hard on designing it and piecing it all together.

Like the maps on their own, Mark worked on the maps at Pixooma, and he took three months just working on the maps on their own. So I just feel like you have to be holding it to appreciate it. I'm a bit old school like that.

Joanna: I love this. You're like, 20 years younger than me, and you're so old school. I am actually holding it, and I am appreciating it as we're talking.

When did you work with an editor in the process, for the words?

Leon: I started working with an editor really early on. Before the design kind of process, it was important to get the editing aspect of it all done to hand over to my designers because of the length of the text, and obviously then putting it together like a puzzle piece.

So working with an editor started very early on, and she worked on Lonely kind of Planet guide books, and had a lot of experience on guide books and things. She made a number of really good suggestions, as well as the text. She also helped me on proofs of the designs. So she gave suggestions for the designs from her experience.

Joanna: I think that's a great person to work with, someone who's done like the Lonely Planet books. It is similar to that in the vibe, in that you don't sit down and read this cover to cover. You're going to dip in and out depending on different areas. I buy books like this for inspiration for my own travels, but also for my own writing. So I think that's cool.

So we've got the book. You've invested your time and your money in making this beautiful book, but marketing this kind of book is difficult. So tell us—

How have you been marketing the book?

Leon: I haven't stopped marketing the book since its release. It's been a real push. I've marketed the book from doing a few book signing events that stemmed from me building that relationship with places. So they've been happy enough to hold me for book signing events.

Then I've also done podcasts with people. I'm using social media. I'm speaking about the book wherever I can, really.

Joanna: I did see you doing signings at interesting venues, like some of your dark venues, on social media.

How did you get people to come along to those signings?

Many people, including myself, are scared of doing signings because often nobody shows up. So how did you do that? How were those?

Leon: Yes, they worked okay. It did depend on the day and the footfall. A lot of the attractions, because we'd organize this book signing, they would promote it on their social media or via their newsletter.

What really helped, some places have been better than other places, but there has been this rippling effect I have noticed afterwards. So I have had people contact me afterwards and said, “Oh, I saw that you were at Shrewsbury Prison. I'd actually be interested in a copy of your book.”

Then I've also had places that have been then willing to stock it in their gift shop as well.

Joanna: I was going to ask about the bookshops because it seems to me a lot of these bigger places have bookstores, and if you can get them to take some copies and do it like that. I do know the profit margin on that is very low, and they'll want their own profit.

Are you pursuing more bookstore sales, or are you preferring to sell from Amazon?

Leon: I think the agreements have worked quite well so far. The places that I've built that relationship with and worked with, they've been quite good, really, in compromising. Obviously they have wanted to take a profit and a percentage of that, but then obviously they understand the product as well.

Obviously, there's the time that I've put into it and my designers working on it and everything. So they've been quite good at working together.

Joanna: Then on social media, obviously you've been posting photos of you in these different places and some of the research stuff.

What have you found works on social media?

Or are you just trying to do as much as possible and see what happens?

Leon: I think one thing I have noticed is getting it into the relevant groups that would be interested and showing how that is relevant to that group. If you're going to use social media and just plow it across social media and use kind of one post, then it probably wouldn't work.

I've been going to groups and speaking to people and stuff, and then seeing which aspects of my book links in, and then I've shared about. That has helped as well.

Joanna:

It is full color. It has so many pictures. The production value is high on the book. So I think this is a gift book as well.

This is something that people buy and have on their shelf or their coffee table, whatever. This is difficult in one way to market, but in other ways, it's evergreen.

So it's going to keep selling over time, as opposed to make you tons of money right now and then stop selling. This is more like a long-term prospect, I think.

Leon: Yes, definitely. Me and the designers I work with wanted it as that guidebook that you can take with you, but also it's a coffee table, bookshelf kind of book that is a talking point. It's something that you can pick up, read one entry and put it back down, and then pick up and read a different entry another day.

So it's not going to generate that massive one-time income. I do to see it is a trickle in, long-term thing. Hopefully, I'll work on other ideas alongside that.

Joanna: Yes, well, that's the other thing. Marketing one book is hard. So are you considering Dark Attractions of Europe?

Have you thought of other book ideas? Or was it just a one-off?

Leon: There are other ideas. I'm working with my designers, and I'm also still working with the attractions closely. So, yes, there's little ideas there, but it would be at a moment where I'm just not expecting it, and it will all just gel itself together.

Like I said going back, you inspired me. I'd learned of this term dark tourism, and it was when I was on a holiday of an evening. It literally will be that I'll have a moment, and I'll think, right, okay, that is it. So, yes, I'm kind of working on a few different ideas that I'm trying to just gel together at the moment.

Joanna: I love that. You said you're super organized and quite controlling, but you're also intuitive. So I think that sounds great.

Just looking back over the years you've been working on this project. So if people are thinking of doing something like this—

What would you say were the biggest challenges of this project that you've learned to do differently if you do another project like this?

Leon: I think don't put too much pressure on yourself. Along the whole process of my book, I was very harsh myself because it was a vast book, and I was doing a number of different places.

There's so many aspects to this book. Designing, researching, writing, and then I was emailing, and I was calling, and I was sourcing images. If you're going to take on a big project like this, don't be too harsh on yourself.

Just give a good time management to each aspect that you're working on. Have time to step back away from the whole desk to re-energize because it was a hefty project to take on. I was very determined, but I was very harsh on myself as well.

Joanna: I do remember when we had originally talked, you had a timeline in mind. Then you said, no, it's going to take longer. As you said, this is a huge project.

Had you underestimated the amount of work?

Leon: Yes, definitely. I definitely underestimated. I was writing, and there were so many places that I wanted to get in and then research. Then when I got to just over 300 I was like, this is the cut and rope kind of moment.

There's also a lot more to the design process because I know that I wanted a lot from my designers. I asked for a lot in the whole kind of designs, and I was picky. So, yes, there was that aspect. My main designer, Marie-Louise, she fell pregnant and didn't expect to fall pregnant in the process.

Joanna: Well, I think you've done an incredible job. So how do you feel now?

Are you proud of the book? Is it everything you wanted it to be?

Leon: Yes. I am really proud of it. I am happy with it. I just want to keep on pushing it and getting it out there and known. It's not a financial element, it's actually I want to get more of our history made aware.

Like I said, there is loads of little places in there that are simple memorials, or just little places that people are just not aware about. I'm very passionate about our British history, and I just want it to be known. I want to give people inspiration to just have a simple little day trip out.

People say, “Oh, there's nothing to do, and we've got to go abroad to go on holiday.” There's just so much that people don't realize that there is to do.

Joanna: That is so true. The more I stay in our country, the more interesting I find things. There's so much history here.

Where can people find you and the book online?

Leon: You can find my book on Amazon. I have a Facebook page at Dark Attractions in the UK. People can follow me through that and keep up to date.

Joanna: So thanks so much for your time today, Leon. That was great.

Leon: Thank you, Joanna, for having me. It was fantastic speaking to you. Thank you.

Takeaways

• Dark tourism encompasses a wide range of sites and experiences.
• Personal experiences at dark tourism sites can inspire deeper reflections on life.
• The motivations for visiting dark tourism sites vary greatly among individuals.
• Self-publishing allows for greater creative control over content and design.
• Researching dark tourism requires thorough investigation and relationship-building with sites.
• Community responses to tragedies can shape the memorialization of events.
• Dark tourism can evoke a spectrum of emotions, from respect to fascination.
• The relationship between dark tourism and true crime reflects a societal curiosity about death.
• Image permissions can be a significant challenge in publishing.
• Being organized is crucial when managing extensive research and communications. Historical permissions are crucial for ethical storytelling.
• Collaboration with designers can enhance the creative process.
• Passion for a subject can drive a project forward.
• The physicality of a book adds to its appreciation.
• Editing should be prioritized early in the process.
• Marketing requires consistent effort and creativity.
• Social media engagement is key to reaching audiences.
• Books can serve as both guides and coffee table pieces.
• Long-term vision is important for book sales.
• Managing expectations is essential in large projects.

The post Dark Tourism And Self-Publishing Premium Print Books With Images With Leon Mcanally first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How do you approach writing a second edition of a non-fiction book? How does self-publishing compare to working with a traditional publisher? Can you build a viable business without active social media use? Gin Stephens shares her tips.

In the intro, the end of Kindle Vella [Amazon]; Lessons from week one of the book launch for This is Strategy [Seth Godin]; Seahenge is out now on my store, and on pre-order elsewhere; ChatGPT launched Search [OpenAI]; How Generative AI Search Will Impact Book Discoverability in the Next Decade.

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Delay, Don't Deny, Fast. Feast. Repeat., Clean(ish), and other health-related nonfiction books. She's also a podcaster at Intermittent Fasting Stories.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Pros and cons of publishing a second edition of a nonfiction book
• Tips for bringing a heavy subject alive
• Breaking through the noise when misinformation surrounds your subject
• Reasons for going the indie route after traditionally publishing
• The power of word of mouth marketing
• How a small paywall can create a more respectful community
• Social media's impact on mental health
• Creating an ecosystem — podcast, community, and books

You can find Gin at GinStephens.com.

Transcript of Interview with Gin Stephens

Joanna: Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Delay, Don't Deny, Fast. Feast. Repeat., Clean(ish), and other health-related nonfiction books. She's also a podcaster at Intermittent Fasting Stories. So welcome back to the show, Gin.

Gin: It is so great to talk to you again.

Joanna: Yes, it's been a few years [Gin's previous interview here]. Now, you have recently released the second edition of Delay, Don't Deny, and I completely get the pain of a subsequent edition. It's just a bit of a nightmare. So I wanted to start by asking you—

Why did you feel like you wanted to do a second edition of that book instead of writing something new?

Gin: Well, that is a great question. I have written new things since writing the original Delay, Don't Deny. This original book that I wrote in 2016, Delay, Don't Deny, and self-published, is just really the bedrock that everything else has been built upon.

I've learned so much more about the topic since I wrote it in 2016, and this book just needed a refresh. It needed some love. I really didn't understand how some people love this one the most.

I was speaking at an event a few years ago, and someone in the audience said, “Which of your books should we start with? Delay, Don't Deny or Fast. Feast. Repeat.?”

Fast. Feast. Repeat. was a New York Times bestseller. It's comprehensive, it's thorough, it's thick. It's every question you could possibly ask about intermittent fasting. It's well referenced. So I said, “Of course start with Fast. Feast. Repeat.“

Then someone in the audience said, “Can I disagree?” I'm like, “Well, go ahead.” She said, “Delay, Don't Deny. I love that one the most.” That got the wheels turning in my head because ever since I moved towards traditional publishing, I hadn't self-published anything.

So I thought, people love that original book. I never talked about it anymore, but it kept selling, and people kept buying it. It did need to be updated because some of the advice I did not necessarily agree with anymore.

From 2016 to 2024, things are going to change. There were just some things that were out of date, so it deserved some love.

You know what kept me from revising it sooner? The audiobook. I didn't want to rerecord the audiobook, and of course, you want them to match. Finally, I just bit the bullet.

First I offered it to my publisher, and the amount that they wanted to give me for an advance was so itty bitty. I was like, well, forget that. I'll redo it myself.

Joanna: That's interesting. I want to come back. So you said there Fast. Feast. Repeat. I've got these books, I've got several of your books, and Fast. Feast. Repeat., you said it's comprehensive, it's thick, it's well referenced. You're a scientist. You do a lot of research. You are very knowledgeable.

Do you think that people don't want the heavily researched book, they just want the story-based book?

Gin: Well, it depends on the person. There are people who resonate with each kind, and that's what I realized. I would like the one with all the references in there, definitely. I want to be able to look at them. I actually do that, by the way, when I read a book written by a scientist or a doctor.

I'll turn to the reference section, especially if something doesn't sound right, I'm like let me look at that myself. I've actually found places where they did not actually represent the study the same way—after I read it—it's not what they said about it.

I also want to correct, I am not a practicing research scientist. I have a master's degree in natural sciences and a doctorate in gifted education. At my root, I'm very much a teacher.

I had to write a dissertation, I learned how to research, I learned how to share all of that research as a part of going through my doctoral program. So I just wanted to make that clear.

So some people just want the basics, and that's what Delay, Don't Deny is for. So it really needed to be updated, like I said, because the people that preferred, you know, just tell me the quick part, give me the stories, they needed Delay, Don't Deny.

Then I actually am now recommending everyone start with Delay, Don't Deny because it might be all you need, but if you want more, that's when it's time to turn to Fast. Feast. Repeat.

I also think that once you've lived the lifestyle for a while, everything in Fast. Feast. Repeat. will click, if that makes sense. You'll understand it better, and you're ready to dig into the science more than maybe on day one.

Joanna: Yes, I totally agree. I discovered you on the podcast years ago, and I still am IF. It's so funny though, I almost don't say I'm IF anymore because I never eat breakfast, or very occasionally, but mostly I start after lunch sometime and have sort of an 18:6 type of lifestyle, as you say. It's almost like I don't even consider that to be IF anymore.

I know you've been doing Intermittent Fasting for years. Do you kind of feel that way sometimes?

Gin: It's just what we do. I've been doing it for over 10 years now, and it's just what I do. I don't have to think about it. You're not like, what am I doing today? What's my window? You just live your life, and then you have your window.

Going back to how you used to live way back before you started just feels so foreign. You couldn't even imagine doing it.

Joanna: No, it's interesting.

Coming back on the book, you said it needed a refresh. So I've done several subsequent editions, and I know how that feels. For people listening, how do you know? So you're reading it, and are you just like, “oh my goodness, I can't believe this”?

How did you decide what to keep and what to change in the new edition?

Gin: Well, I know what questions people have, and I know where the confusions lie. You're familiar with the terminology “clean fast”, and that is foundational in my work. What's funny is, when I wrote Delay, Don't Deny in 2016, we had not started using the terminology “clean fast” in my groups yet.

I came up with that wording at some point in 2017, and it stuck. So it's just kind of funny that Delay, Don't Deny doesn't have the wording “clean fast” in it. I also was a little wishy-washy about a few things related to the clean fast and how to fast properly.

That was because there was the doctor who had written a book, Dr. Jason Fung, The Obesity Code. He was like, “Well, have a little lemon if you want,” and I didn't want to contradict him in my book. Who am I to contradict him? So I'm like, well, I'll just kind of go along with what he said.

Then the longer that I supported people through intermittent fasting and my Facebook groups, we had about 500,000 combined members before I ended up leaving Facebook. So over time I realized the lemon does make a difference, and that little splash of cream does make a difference.

So I became more emphatic, I guess is the word I would use, about the clean fast, just because we had it validated with so many people who found that the clean fast changed the whole experience. So I developed confidence, and I can say with confidence, this is how it works better, and you should give this a try.

By the time Fast. Feast. Repeat. came out in 2020, I was really embraced to the idea of the clean fast and very confidently saying, “This is what I think would work for you better. Try this.” So I needed to get that into Delay, Don't Deny as well.

Not to mention the success stories in the back. Looking back at it through fresh eyes today, when I wrote Delay, Don't Deny, I was just leading a small Facebook group. At that time we had like, I don't know, 1500 members or something. I can't even remember.

So I just put out into the group, “Hey, anybody want to share their story in my book? Just send it to me and I'll put it in,” but I hadn't written anything yet. I didn't have any podcasts yet. I was just leading people who had joined together in a Facebook group.

So the stories are just very ‘interesting' that are in the original Delay, Don't Deny. I'm just going to say they're ‘interesting' because I'm so grateful for the people who shared their stories early on. Now, many of them are not things I would recommend that you do. So reading through them years later, I'm like, oooh.

So what I love more than anything about the revised second edition of Delay, Don't Deny is the success stories section.

I was like, how am I going to gather them just in my community? Am I going to need to email my whole list? How many stories will come in? I just put it out into my private intermittent fasting community and said, “Here's the Google link. Fill out this form if you want to.”

Then I just left it there, and people submitted their stories, and they're just amazing. The beauty of it this time is that they have read my books, and listened to my podcast, and been a part of the community. So all the stories align with the advice I would give.

There was nothing that jumped out as, oooh, I wouldn't suggest that someone do that. Instead, they're all aligned. So that was really, really important to me to get the good stories with the aligned recommendations out there.

Joanna: Then I guess there'll be some people listening, people who want to write a non-fiction book, that feel a bit like you did, which is, “Oh, well, there's a doctor who's written a book on this. Maybe I can't because I'm not special,” or whatever it is.

Do you think you made the right choice publishing that first edition when you did?

Looking back, you're happy with that? You're not embarrassed? How can you encourage people to put the book out there even though, as you say now, maybe everything wasn't perfect?

Gin: It wasn't perfect.

If we wait for something to be perfect or for 100% of everyone to agree with you, you will never do anything.

If you look at books written by doctors, they don't all agree. Doctors are people with opinions and blinders on for certain things on occasion.

So the more you read and see what's out there and how people disagree, the more you feel like, oh, I can have an opinion too. Now, do I regret putting it out there? Absolutely not.

I've sold over 380,000 copies of that first little book, and for a self-published book that is only available in paperback through Amazon I feel pretty good about that. I mean, that's it. I don't have it wide. You want the paperback. It's Amazon. That's it.

Just think of all the lives that have been touched by intermittent fasting. I'm not pretending to be something that I'm not. I'm very, very clear throughout the book of who I am, what my background is like.

For example, I mentioned that I have a doctorate in gifted and talented education. I remember when I first joined this like health and wellness community with influencers, writers, podcasters, a lot of doctors, actual medical doctors in this group.

One of the first things the people running this group said to me is, “You're Doctor Stephens. You have a doctorate. You should put doctor on the front of your books.” I'm like, nope, because I'm not that kind of doctor. I don't want to misrepresent myself.

Be confident in who you are. I know what my skills are. I'm a teacher. I can read things and then teach them to you. I taught math, and I'm not a mathematician. I taught history, and I'm not a historian. I taught reading, and I'm not a linguist or whatever.

I am able to teach things and say, “Here's what I have learned, and I'm sharing that with you. Here are some resources where you can go learn more.” I think the fact that I'm not a medical doctor, and that I am a teacher, has been my superpower because people can understand what I write.

I'm trained in delivering content, so I think that I'm able to do that better than a lot of doctors.

Joanna: Absolutely. There'll be some people listening who listen to the medical podcasts out there, Peter Attia and things like that, where you're like, okay, but I can't listen to this because it's way too technical for me.

I mean, Intermittent Fasting Stories is normal people talking about normal life, and not using difficult words about whatever hormones. You do go through things like hormone effect and all of that kind of thing in Fast. Feast. Repeat., I think, but it's like you don't need that to get started. You can just get started with the story.

So I think that's so important. I think this is one of the problems with nonfiction books, is people think they need to be all fact based and emotionless. You've written with real voice, like your actual voice is in the book.

Do you have any tips for bringing a subject alive if it gets too heavy?

Gin: I think it's just a matter of readers want to connect with stories, whether they're reading nonfiction or fiction. We enjoy connecting with stories. Stories are powerful.

So when I first wanted to write a book about intermittent fasting and share what I knew to help people learn how to do it and apply it into their lives, I was really inspired by a set of books that I read when I was pregnant and a new mother. It was The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy. Do you remember that series?

Joanna: No, but I'm happily child free, so not my thing.

Gin: I was pregnant, and my babies were born in '98 and '99. So that tells you when those books were really, really popular. There was the Bible of pregnancy, What to Expect When You're Expecting, and that one was dry, and it was like factual.

You definitely needed that one, but The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy was irreverent, and it was funny, and it was like a girlfriend was talking to you. You wanted to read it. I mean, I read that multiple times.

The same thing with, she had The Girlfriends' Guide to the First Year and The Girlfriends' Guide to the Toddler Years. You just felt like somebody got it. You're learning about it from someone who got it, and it was funny, and you didn't feel alone.

I think that when we're thinking about health and wellness and the diet industry, you know, you can read a book written by the person who is maybe a nutritionist or a workout expert, and they've never struggled like you. They've never been overweight, really. Maybe they had to lose five pounds or something.

They've got this book for you, and you're like, but do they really get what it's like to weigh 210 pounds? You know, I know what that's like because I did weigh 210 pounds. I was obese, and I lost 80 pounds with intermittent fasting.

I know what it's like to be on that diet roller coaster of up and down. I know what it's like to read all the diet books, and try everything, and just be so stuck. So I wanted that to all come through in a way that was relatable. It's my story in there interwoven through Delay, Don't Deny.

I think the reason people love this book so much, and I've heard this hundreds or thousands of times, I don't even know how many times, that people will say—

“I read that book, and I thought, if you can do it, I can do it.”

It was just the fact that they felt like it was a real person that was telling them there's hope, and here's the science. You know, I'm putting the science in there too. It's not just only my story, I have the science in there.

I talk about autophagy. I talk about the problem with calories in, calories out. The Biggest Loser study, and why low calorie diets fail us. So the science is there. It's got that underpinning of science, but it's also relatable, and you know that you can do it.

Joanna: Absolutely. So one of the other interesting things is that when you started out on intermittent fasting over a decade ago, there really wasn't much out there about it, but now it feels like the market is saturated.

There's books and podcasts. You go on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, reels, and there's positive stuff, there's negative stuff, and there's just a lot of stuff. I mean, even on Amazon, there's just a ton of stuff.

How are you breaking through the noise in a saturated market so that people find your books?

Especially when there's a lot of hype, misinformation, and people might put you in the same bracket as some of the people who aren't so good, let's say.

Gin: I will say the truth sells. There's a lot of misinformation out there, but the truth will make the difference. The truth of the clean fast and the way that that will change the experience for you.

For everybody listening who may be like, “Well, I tried intermittent fasting. It didn't work for me,” I bet you weren't fasting clean. I bet you were trying something overcomplicated. So my magic secret, which isn't so magic and it's not really a secret, is word of mouth.

If somebody read my book, let's just say the original Delay, Don't Deny, and they read it in early 2017 when it first hit the market, and then they had great success. Well, people around them notice, and they're like, “Hey, what are you doing?” And then they tell them, and then you're just spreading the word like that.

That's really been the magic of my work reaching a lot of people. Yes, I've got the podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories, and my newer one Fast. Feast. Repeat. we've been doing for just over a year.

People might just stumble across them, and then they hear the stories, and then they're like, well, let me see what Gin has written. Then they end up with my books, and then they try it, and then it works. Then they tell people.

There was a commercial in the United States in, I don't know, the 70s, the 80s, it was like a shampoo commercial. Maybe it was Faberge Organics, I can't remember, but it was, “And then I told two friends, and then she told two friends, and then she told two friends.” It was just like, yes, word of mouth really can spread the word.

So, yes, there's a lot of confusing information out there.

There are a lot of books on intermittent fasting that are overly complicated.

But I think those kind of fall from the wayside. Delay, Don't Deny has been selling steadily since I released at the end of 2016. Other fasting books come and go.

The same with Fast. Feast. Repeat. It's been selling steadily since 2020. If you compare it to the other fasting books that are out there, almost 100% of the other fasting books also have a diet plan they want you to follow.

Maybe they want you to be intermittent fasting plus paleo. Or maybe they want you to be intermittent fasting plus keto. Or you have to be intermittent fasting plus whole food, plant based, low fat, or whatever it might be.

My work is intermittent fasting plus eat the way that makes you feel your best, whatever that is, and it will probably change over time. It really empowers you, instead of being a prescriptive plan.

People want that. They might not know they want it. They might be used to a prescriptive plan. There's a lot of magic in being empowered to choose for yourself.

Joanna: This word of mouth, I totally agree with you. You said there, selling steadily, which is the mark of word of mouth. It's not like you put everything into the first month and then it all disappears.

This is also one of the challenges of a second edition because with a true second edition, you lose all those reviews. You lose all the incoming links from all the websites that linked to that edition of the book. So presumably you feel that's worth it because—

That book on Amazon starts again, essentially, with no reviews.

Gin: It does, and you know what? I put that out there in August of this year, 2024, and I think it's got 78 reviews already. Whereas my other one had like 13,000, okay.

Joanna: It takes time.

Gin: It does take time. When I'm looking to buy a book, I look at the overall ratings. I'm not going to read 13,000 reviews, right. A book with 78 reviews, and it's 4.9 stars, I'm going to be really excited about that book.

I'm very clear in the updated description that it's a second edition, and I talk about the updates and how it's changed. I had to really think about that, since I'm self-published, I could have just slipped the revisions in the old version. I could have done it.

I debated about that and decided not to for multiple reasons. One of which is used copies, and then people would accidentally end up with the used copy of the first edition, and I didn't want them to read the first edition anymore. I wanted them to read the second edition.

So I just made that decision, and it was not easy that day that I started with zero reviews on the new edition. Luckily, my community, of course, they're the ones who found it first. My community found it, and they're the ones giving it the five star reviews because they're already fans. So hopefully that will lead more people to it.

Joanna: Then I've got to return to the audiobook because you said you did not want to do the audiobook. So tell us—

Why do you hate doing audiobooks, and what are your tips?

Gin: I just hate doing audiobooks, but I have to read them myself because everyone's used to my voice. They listen to my podcast. So I know I have to read it myself. Also I'm going to give it the right kind of intonation. I know how it should be emphasized.

It's a lot of work, and I don't edit audio. I can edit the written word. I can design my own book. By the way, you self-publish, right? You're self-published?

Joanna: Yes, but I employ freelancers to design things.

Gin: Well, I'm pretty much a one stop shop when it comes to the paperback. I just have started using Atticus for formatting.

Joanna: Yes, sponsor of the show. Atticus.

Gin: Atticus, you are amazing. I don't know how I found out about it, but that's another reason why I needed to do a second edition because, embarrassing, my first edition, I did it in Word. It looked crazy when I put them side by side.

I mean, people still bought it, but after being traditionally published with professional book designers, I was like, oh my gosh, Delay, Don't Deny looks like I made it on Word, Whereas —

The second edition is just beautiful. Thank you, Atticus.

The thing about the audiobook is I had to hire somebody. I had to go to a recording studio. I'm still going through the editing process right now. So it's just a lot of work. It's like running a marathon.

Joanna: Yes, it's definitely something you have to get used to. After my first audiobook I did myself, I was like never again. Then I started hiring people, and then I went back to it.

I've got an audio studio here in my office, so I just now do it myself. There's a lot of AI tools you can use for editing. So I think it depends how many books you end up doing yourself. Maybe there's more.

Gin: I'm grateful that I can outsource it. Just like you said, you send some things to designers. For me, it's the audio part.

That's the part I want everyone who's listening to hear. Be confident in the part you can do, and also be confident in the part you can't do. If that's the part holding you back, you can hire somebody to do stuff for you and get a professional product out there.

Joanna: Absolutely. Let's come to the publishing bit because, like you said, you started out in self-publishing, but then you did several books with traditional publishers.

What did you love about traditional publishing?

What did you find useful? What did you enjoy? Since I know you love learning.

Gin: There are definitely parts that I enjoy. I enjoy having copy editors who read my work and find mistakes, but they also don't find everything. Let me just put it that way. Even after a book has been completely copy edited, things can still get out of whack through the traditional publishing process.

I enjoy that there are cover designers to work on the cover, but again, also you want to be able to give your input. You have to put your foot down sometimes and say, no, I want it to look more like this, and that's important to know.

I enjoy that they have a liaison with Amazon if those scammers get out there, and they will, and they do. Putting out their little scam books, and it ends up in the listing, and they can get right on there with Amazon and get that taken care of for you. So I really enjoy that.

It feels great to be supported through the audiobook process. MacMillan Audio handled everything. They set up the studio. All I had to do was show up. There was a director there with me, the audio engineer.

Actually, two of my audiobooks I did at home because of COVID. Like even though I had MacMillan Audio and professional directors, we did it from home with them with me throughout the process. It was just because of COVID both times.

The third time I went to the recording studio, and that's where I connected with the guy. When I did my latest book, 28-Day FAST Start Day-by-Day, which was my last to be traditionally published, they found the audio engineer with a recording studio close to me.

I didn't have to try to put blankets up in my office, for example, like I did the last two times in my little blanket recording fort. So that was really, really nice having the professionals to go through it and listen to it and make sure it's just right, all of that. It's just nice to have those eyes.

I learned a lot, and I think it made me have a better product. Like I said, looking at the results of how my first edition looked compared to how my second edition looks, it just made me bump it up. You want to have a book that compares.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's it. People listening, know that you can hire editors, you can hire book cover designers. As you have done, you can hire audio people. You can hire pretty much everyone now, a lot of whom used to work for traditional publishing. So there's options both ways.

What's interesting, of course, and you mentioned that the advance you were offered was not enough to be interesting.

Were there other reasons you decided to go indie with this book?

Gin: Just because Delay, Don't Deny is like I wanted it like I wanted it. That's one of the tradeoffs of working with a traditional publisher. From the title, to the book cover, to what they put on the back, to what's written in the Amazon listing.

Every single one of my traditionally published books, the way it's worded in the Amazon listing is not the way I would word it. Every one of them. The back matter is not the way I would have worded it.

As a part of the collaborative process, you might get a first draft from your editor, and then you make suggestions, but it's still that somebody else is uploading that to Amazon. Somebody else is doing all of that.

I mentioned to you before we recorded, in an email, I have another book that I'm going to be working on, and my agent shopped it to my editor, and I got a very substantial six figure advance offer from it, and I have turned it down. I'm going to self-publish the new book as well.

I mean, it made total sense to do the second edition of Delay, Don't Deny myself, but for a new book with a great advance offer from a traditional publisher that I enjoy working with. I love my editor. I love my agent. They're great people. They have a great team.

I looked back at a book that I wrote in 2017 called Feast Without Fear, and I haven't talked about that one much, and I looked at my earnings from 2017 through today, and my earnings on that little book I never really talk about are almost as much as the big six figure advance that they're offering me. I was like, huh—

Why would I traditionally publish it when I can put it out there myself?

I have an audience of people who are going to be interested in reading what I have to put out there.

Of course, it's not all about the money, but now that I have realized with Atticus, and I've got someone who can help me with the audiobook, I really can do it myself now. I have the skills to do it. I have the support.

So everything that I really enjoyed about traditional publishing, I can make my new book look very professional, and do it myself, and retain the royalties, and have control.

The new book that I'm got in my head, and I have it a little bit outlined, both my agent and my editor said, “I like the idea, but you're going to need to work on the title. We don't really like that.”

I'm like, well, I don't want to work on the title. I really like it the way I want it. So just all those little things along the way that you lose control of when you do traditional publishing. That's important when you're a writer and you're a little bit of an artist too, and you want it like you want it.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's important. One of the biggest things there, of course, is that you have a community. Now, like everyone, you started with no community, so you did have nobody. Then over time, like you said, you started on Facebook groups.

You left Facebook, and you now have a paid community on Circle.

 This is something that many people are petrified of. A, of leaving Facebook, but B, starting a paid community. So can you maybe talk about that? Why you did it, why you left, and any tips?

Gin: I could do like a five hour show about why I left! When I left, it was the end of 2020, going into 2021, and you can remember what a charged time that was on Facebook. Okay, now imagine I'm running health related groups, and also imagine that there are almost 500,000 combined members.

So you could just imagine how charged that time was and how difficult it was. One thing about Facebook groups, especially in the health and wellness community, is that Facebook was shutting people down for things.

I mean, I don't know if they're still doing that in groups. I don't really know since I don't run any groups. I can remember somebody that was actually in my community, in my Facebook community, had some sort of recipe group or something related to food. It was a Facebook group with maybe 10,000 members.

She woke up one day and the entire group had been shut down by Facebook, and there was no way for her to get it back. I thought, what if Facebook decides that fasting is dangerous and shuts me down? I would have no recourse. It would all be lost. All these people that are in my community would just be gone.

We got dings against our group for things like AI didn't like certain wording, like they really don't like the word fat. In a fasting community, there's something called being fat adapted, and that is actually a good thing. You want to be fat adapted, meaning your body has flipped the metabolic switch and is running on fat easily.

AI would be like, “You used the word fat, and you're the admin. Three more strikes, we'll shut down your group.” I mean, you'd get an AI-generated ding. Somebody who was a moderator accidentally did some emoji, and then she's like, “Oops, sorry. I didn't mean to pick the angry emoji. Fat thumbs.” Ding, bullying.

She's like, “Wait, no, that was me. I said I had fat thumbs.” You know what fat thumbs means. It's not bullying. It means you accidentally clicked the wrong thing.

There was that fear of losing my whole community [if Facebook shut us down.]

There was also a little bit of wandering off the street in Facebook, if you know what I mean. People could find you by accident, and that was beautiful, but also not always.

Sometimes people would find you by accident, and they wouldn't have any idea about you or anything about you, or your books, or your podcast, or what you recommended, and they would come in hot. Then they'd argue with you about things.

I just want to support people who are bought into the clean fast. I want to support people who have similar goals, who have similar philosophies towards fasting. I don't want to argue with people who think that Bulletproof Coffee is a great way to start your day when you're fasting.

There are communities where those people can be really happy, but I don't want to have to police that all day long. So I would like a community where I can support people who are following the advice that I give.

I don't want to argue with anyone on Facebook ever again until the day that I die, pretty much.

So it was hard because, like I said, I had a giant community. I thought maybe I'm only selling books, and maybe people are only listening to my podcast because of my Facebook groups. Maybe leaving Facebook will make it all stop and that'll be the end. I said, it is worth it. Even if that is true, it is worth it.

So I started my private community, and, oh, some people some people were mad. People that were used to being in my Facebook group for free were super mad. They're like, I read your book, I bought your book, and now you're asking me to pay for your community.

I'm like, well, buying a book means you get a book. You got the book, right? I don't know why reading a book means you get free support for the rest of your life from me, the author. It doesn't.

So the people who joined my community wanted my support, they wanted my advice, they wanted to interact with me, and they were willing to pay for it. It's like $9.99 a month. I'm not really asking a lot, but $9.99 a month weeds out the people who really don't want to be in my community.

So I have a wonderful community, and I love interacting with the people there. They ask questions, and we help them. People post their struggles, they post their successes, and the right people find it who are excited to be there. So that fear that I had when I left, I'm so glad that I did it anyway.

Everything good I've ever done, I did it full of fear, and I did it anyway. So it's been worth it.

I love my community so very much, and I'm grateful for everyone who has moved over with us.

Joanna: I think it's such a big thing. So at the end of 2023, I did something similar with content, which I've put within my Patreon/thecreativepenn. So I've got a Patreon, but I did the same thing. It was like—

I'm getting too much hate talking about specific things. I'm just going to put a very small paywall up.

The difference to mental health is tremendous, right? I was around you at that time, and I remember how stressed you sounded around the stuff on Facebook.

Gin: Well, it was awful in the summer of 2020, when everything was really politically charged. We had a ‘no politics' rule in our Facebook groups, but something happened while I was sleeping one night where someone tried to post something political, and my moderators did not allow it because we're not a political group, we're a Facebook group.

Whether I did or didn't agree with the post, we're not going to have political posts. So the person got really upset that the moderators wouldn't let them post something.

Then instead of just whatever, they went to Amazon and left a one star review on my book and said really mean things that were untrue about me and my personal philosophies. I wasn't even awake. I was sleeping the whole time when it happened.

So I was like, oh, we can't have this. That made me realize that there does need to be a little bit more gatekeeping. We're not going to be political in my group, no matter where we are.

We're going to help you with fasting. We're going to help you with your questions. We're not going to talk about your political leanings, no matter whether I agree with them or whether I don't.

I hope people have no idea where I stand politically. That's what I want. You got plenty of content for that, Gin Stephens doesn't need to be part of it, if you know what I mean.

Joanna: Are you on any social media at all?

Gin: I am on Facebook as Gin Stephens, the person. When I said I was leaving Facebook, I wasn't kidding. I took the app off my phone, and I did not open it or look at it for over a year.

I mean, even like, what are my high school friends doing? What are my college friends doing? I didn't know. I was in my bubble because it almost felt like PTSD, honestly. I realized, you know what, I can go back on Facebook as Gin Stephens, the person. I went in and, first of all, unfriended everybody that I didn't really know.

There were some people that I had met through intermittent fasting that I really liked, and I kept them because some of them were in my new community. Some of them weren't. I considered them friends, some of them who'd maybe been on our cruises before COVID.

So I really weeded it out, and so now Facebook really is my friends. It's people that I have from college, people that I grew up with, people I worked with, kids I taught. I mean, I can go on Facebook and just be me.

I don't interact on Facebook a lot. I definitely do not do any political commentary with friends who I may or may not agree with. I just ignore those. I'm just like, “Oh, what's she doing? Oh, she went to a concert. That's nice.” I'm using Facebook like it was originally intended, and I'm not talking about intermittent fasting at all.

Instagram is a different kind of beast. The problem with Instagram is, being a public figure on Instagram makes people sometimes think that anything you post, they can then feel free to comment on in different ways. I don't care for that.

I posted a picture of me and my husband on Instagram, just Gin Stephens, the person. It wasn't a fasting post. In some of the comments, one person wanted to critique Intermittent Fasting Stories, and one person wants fasting coaching.

I'm like, no, no. This is me and my husband on the porch. If you want fasting coaching, you will not get it through the comments on Instagram, sorry.

Also, don't critique my podcast here. Leave it a review. If you really need to say something, give it a review. I don't want to see that. I don't go read my one star reviews. I just don't, no matter where it is. I don't want to see that. I know they're out there, but I don't want to see it. It made me feel very reluctant to even post anything on Instagram. So sometimes I will, but —

I don't go back in and monitor the comments or even read them anymore.

Here's a little secret for everybody who's listening, most people who are commenting back to you on Instagram, that's someone on their staff doing it, not really them, anyone who is like “an influencer”.

I don't have any staff, I don't have people going in, commenting as me. So I just don't read it, and I don't have to comment or have hurt feelings. I guess that's the way I deal with it.

I'm here to help you if you would like my help. If you don't, that's fine too. There's other people out there that might resonate with you more. Go explore their content. If you don't like what I have to say, if you think the clean fast sounds really dumb and you want to have whatever, do it.

I'm here to guide the people who are interested in what I have to say, and it's taken me a long time to get to this point.

You can't please everybody, and if you try, you'll just make yourself really unhappy. So please the people who you please, they are your people.

Joanna: Yes, you have to have the boundaries. I know we're almost out of time, but I know people are now going, well— How does she get traffic to her books and her community?

So it's your business model. So you've got the Intermittent Fasting Stories Podcast and you've got a second podcast, which are the main ways people find you. Then you've got the books, and you've got the community. That's it, right?

Gin: Here's what's funny, my business plan was zero business plan. I started my first Facebook group in 2015 with no plan. I was a school teacher.

I had no plan for intermittent fasting to be my business.

I just started a Facebook group to support me and my friends who had seen me lose 75 pounds. I wanted a place where it was me and my friends and we could talk about it.

I'd been in some other Facebook groups as I was losing the weight, and again, I don't want to argue with people on Facebook. So that's why I started my own group because I was like, I'm not going to argue with people.

Then, of course, you can't stop doing that on Facebook when people join and want to argue with you, which is why I left Facebook.

It grew because I had a very welcoming community and people saw the positive interactions.

We kept the arguing behind the scenes. It was just a very, very friendly community, and it was heavily moderated.

I had a group of volunteer moderators, and they were wonderful. I'm so grateful to them, but it was still hard to keep that on Facebook.

So I also started podcasting. I released my first book at the end of 2016, put it out there. I wasn't podcasting yet. People just found the Facebook groups, and they found the books.

Then when people would find the books, that would lead them to the Facebook group. When people would find the Facebook group, that would lead them to the book. Again, I was just selling books one at a time.

Then I started podcasting. My first podcasting experience was in 2017, and I no longer do that particular podcast, but I did it for five years.

People would find the podcast first, and that would lead them to the book and lead them to the community.

Then I started my own podcast, that was Intermittent Fasting Stories, and that's really been the baseline for me ever since. Here's a suggestion I have for people. If you're naming a podcast, name it something that people will find, like Intermittent Fasting Stories.

If someone's looking for intermittent fasting, they're going to find that because it's the key word and the title. So if your podcast is out there and people are finding it, it will direct them to the rest of your work.

So all of my things, and I didn't know anything about the word ‘funnel.' I didn't know that word.

Then when I talked earlier about joining this community of people that are health and wellness practitioners, and influencers who are writers, and podcasters and getting the word out there. One of the first sessions was all about your funnel.

They're like, what's your funnel? What's your email? I'm like, I don't have any of that. Then I realized I really did. My podcast leads people to my books. My podcast leads people to my community. My books lead people to my podcast. My books lead people to my community.

You can't consume one thing without finding the other things. If you like my podcast, you will like my books. If you like my podcast, you will like my community. So just really letting people find you and then leading them to the other things that you have.

My whole reason for being is not, what else can I sell you? Podcasts are free. You can read my books for free. You can get them from the library. You can get them from Audible. I mean, literally, you can find the content out there.

You can get the eBook from your library app. If your library doesn't have the eBook, ask them to get it. You can join my community for a very small price.

So it's not like I'm going to sell you more and more things, but the funnel kind of leads people to what they want. I'm thinking about it, I'm saying the word funnel, but it's like my own little definition of funnel.

Joanna: I use ecosystem. You've got an ecosystem.

Gin: There you go. It's a natural funnel. It's not like click funnels, where now I'm going to put you on my email list and try to sell you 42 things a week. No, it's not like that.

By the way, I don't send out email newsletters. If you are in my email list, you get a notification every time a new podcast episode drops, and that's it. I'm not like always trying to sell you things.

Joanna: I love it. I absolutely love this. People are like, what? She doesn't have proper email list. She doesn't have social media.

Gin: What's really funny also in this group that I was a part of, this teaching you how to be a successful entrepreneur in the world. They're like, “Getting an email list is the most valuable thing.”

I was in the summit, and they were like, “You had so many people with the summit that you win the email list.” I'm like, no, thank you. They're like, what? I'm like, no, I don't want that email list.

Joanna: No, that's terrible. That's unethical of them as well.

Gin: I mean, that's the name of the game, it's growing your email list so you can sell people things. That is not what I want to do. I could sell a fasting supplement, but you don't need fasting supplements, everybody. I could sell fasting electrolytes, but you don't need me to. I mean, you just don't need it.

Fasting coffee. I could sell you fasting coffee, but guess what? All coffee is fasting coffee. Get the kind you like. Ah, anyway, you have to joke about it.

Joanna: Oh, no, you do. You do. I do remember you do have a partner with some wine, right? I remember your wine recommendations.

Gin: I definitely will have affiliate links to things I love. I'm not against doing that, but I also turn down a whole lot of sponsors or affiliate relationships.

If I don't love it, we're not doing it. There are so many things that were like, “Oh, we would like to advertise our whatever on your podcast.” I'm like, no, no.

Joanna: I'm the same. I think our reputation is more important than a quick buck. So I get that.

Tell people where they can find you, and your books, and the podcast, and your community online.

Gin: Well, if you just go to GinStephens.com that will funnel you everywhere. There are links there to my books, and to my community, and to my podcasts.

If it all resonates with you and it sounds like what you would like to do, I would love to support you. If you would like to follow a more complicated kind of fasting, you could do that too, but I wouldn't.

You don't need to fast according to the moon, and you don't need to change 100% of what you're eating. You are empowered to find the intermittent fasting approach that works for you, and that's what I will help you do. We're not all the same. I've said this before, someone could follow me around and do exactly what I do and have different results. So my job is to help you figure out what works best for you.

Joanna: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time, Gin. That was great.

Gin: Thank you.

Takeaways

• Gin Stephens emphasizes the importance of updating her book to reflect new insights.
• The community's feedback played a crucial role in the book's evolution.
• Clean fasting is a foundational concept that needed to be emphasized in the revised edition.
• Success stories from the community align with the advice given in the book.
• Readers connect more with stories than with dry facts in non-fiction.
• Word of mouth has been a powerful tool for spreading the message of intermittent fasting.
• The challenges of releasing a second edition include losing previous reviews and links.
• Audiobooks require a different skill set and can be labor-intensive.
• Self-publishing allows for creative control, but traditional publishing offers professional support.
• Confidence in one's unique voice and perspective is essential for non-fiction writers. Audiobook production can be a collaborative and supportive process.
• Self-publishing allows for greater creative control over content.
• Building a community is essential for authors and creators.
• Leaving Facebook can lead to a healthier online community experience.
• Maintaining boundaries on social media is crucial for mental health.
• A business model doesn't have to be complex to be effective.
• Podcasts can serve as a powerful marketing tool for books.
• Engagement in a paid community can foster a more dedicated audience.
• It's important to prioritize reputation over quick financial gains.
• Finding what works best for you is key in any health journey.

The post Self-Publishing A Second Edition Of A Non-Fiction Book With Gin Stephens first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What are some of the key elements in writing horror? How can you be successful writing and self-publishing in the genre? With Boris Bacic.

In the intro, ISBNs made easy [Self-publishing Advice];
Written Word Media’s 2024 author survey; Taylor Swift self-publishing [Morning Brew]; Thoughts on audiobooks [Seth Godin]; This is Strategy: Make Better Plans – Seth Godin;

Plus, Orna Ross and I talk about our response to Google NotebookLM, while the AI hosts discuss indie author myths [Self-Publishing Advice Podcast]; Seahenge: A Short Story available now and on pre-order.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Boris Bacic is a bestselling horror author from Serbia, with more than 30 books and short stories.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Unique platforms for publishing horror short stories
• Subgenres of horror and how they have evolved
• Catering to an English-speaking market
• Finding inspiration from personal experience and place
• Deciding whether an idea is best for a short story or full-length book
• Different channels to earn an income from short stories
• Why some books succeed in KU and others flop
• Considerations when writing a horror series
• Networking and community for horror writers

You can find Boris at AuthorBorisBacic.com.

Transcript of Interview with Boris Bacic

Joanna: Boris Bacic is a bestselling horror author from Serbia, with more than 30 books and short stories. So welcome to the show, Boris.

Boris: Thanks for having me here.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Boris: I started writing when I was a kid. Back then, it was fantasy. This was before the era of computers and whatnot. I was writing in my notebook. I guess somewhere along the line, it just kind of morphed into horror.

I didn't get into publishing until I was in my late 20s. I had started writing short stories for Creepypasta.com, for Reddit's NoSleep forum, and after about 20 or so unsuccessful stories, one of my stories went viral.

This was a big thing for me because so many people wanted to collaborate. YouTube narrators, Creepypasta animators, and so on. So this was a big thing for me. Somewhere along the line, one of them had asked me, like, why don't I publish a book? I said, no, no, that's not for me. I'm not cut out to be a writer.

After some time, after more successful stories, I said, okay, I'm going to take the plunge. I knew nothing about publishing, and after unsuccessful attempts to find agents and publishers, I ran into 20Booksto50K.

This gave me a completely new perspective on self-publishing, because up until then, I had thought that self-published authors did not earn any money at all.

So this was a new thing for me, and that's eventually how I got into publishing my novels. Right now, I have more than 30.

Joanna: Wow. Okay, a few questions to come back on. First of all, explain to people what Creepypasta is. Because I think a lot of people won't know.

Boris: So Creepypasta.com, this used to be very popular back in the day. This was a website where lots of scary short stories would be hosted. So anybody could write, anybody could post them there. If they were good enough, they would be approved.

Eventually, a similar sub-reddit came out, which was NoSleep. This is exactly what it is, how it sounds. It is a forum where people can post short stories.

This was very popular back in the day because so many YouTube narrators started adapting them into narrations, and they start adding creepy music over there. This was a very good way for aspiring authors, and even established authors, to reach new audiences.

Joanna: I thought Creepypasta stories also had a sort of internet meme thing, in terms of the sort of tropes.

Are there tropes specifically for these forums?

Boris: There are definitely lots of tropes over there, and one of the popular ones that arose from there was the type of horror where there are rules you need to follow. It became so oversaturated with this after a while, that it's like if you enter a church, don't look over your shoulder. Don't enter after 3am and so on.

So this became very popular. It was very scary back in the day, and so many stories arose from it. Even my first published anthology was exactly like that. A security guard, because I used to be a security guard, who is working in a paranormal place, and he needs to follow a set of rules. There are lots of these that are sort of outdated now, but I can see that even trad authors have started using some of the Creepypasta tropes.

Joanna: You've said “back in the day” a couple of times. So is this not a viable place now? Is Reddit kind of—well, it's not done, is it?

Is Reddit still somewhere that somebody starting out now might have a look at?

Boris: Oh, absolutely. Reddit is an excellent place. Creepypasta, not so much. The last time I checked, it was just not the same. I can see that most of the interest is coming from NoSleep. We've even had a lot of aspiring authors, like me, who wrote short stories to Reddit, then they had them published into novels.

I've even seen a few authors who actually got really big movie deals. So NoSleep, Reddit generally, and stuff like WattPad, these are very good platforms for that sort of thing.

Joanna: Interesting. So let's just take a step back into horror in general. In fact, as we record this today, my folk horror novel, Blood Vintage, finishes on Kickstarter. I've had so many people—I mean, it's folk horror, which is a very small sub niche—but people say, “Oh, I never read horror.”

Then I say, oh, well, it's more a sort of eerie sense of place with folklore. Then they're like, “Oh, okay. Well, that sounds interesting.” So I wondered if you'd come across this in terms of, “I never read horror,”

Horror is not just slasher/gore. What else does horror encompass?

Boris: Well, unfortunately, there's still a lot of stigma around horror, even in today's era. When people see horror, they think either a bloodbath or occult Satanism. This kind of dissuades them from reading because this is the two stuff that has evolved from the 80s.

Horror has advanced a lot. It has evolved a lot, and it has branched out into this multifaceted thing where we can see it in so many different genres. It blends with everything.

We see it in psychological thrillers. We see it in romance and fantasy, everywhere.

It's no longer just about whatever gore is going on over there. It has sort of evolved into this psychological thing. Lots of people who say they don't read horror, chances are they do, they're just not aware of it because it's such a personal thing. It's such a unique thing, and we each experience it in our own way.

Something that is scary to you may not be scary to me and vice versa. This is the beautiful thing about it. I personally like the type of horror like you mentioned in your book. This buildup of suspense, the atmospheric buildup, this is my favorite kind.

There's nothing more beautiful and harder than that, when it just sort of builds up to a crescendo that by the time you realize what's going on, it's already too late. It's not always going to be about cutting off limbs, or being chased by monsters, or seeing boogeyman in the closets.

What terrifies me more is this personal kind of thing, like loss of a loved one. It can be claustrophobia, like being stuck in an elevator. To someone that is absolute horror. It can be isolation.

So for the people who say they don't like to read horror, they don't want to read it because of this, I can say they're probably already reading it. They're already seeing it every day. They're just sort of desensitized to it.

Joanna: Yes, I know what you mean. The word still has the stigma, as you say, but often people are labeling things differently. For example, dark fantasy, I think, has a big crossover. Do you ever label it as anything else?

Boris: So sometimes it's really difficult to categorize it. That's the thing. Since I write so many different subgenres, horror specifically, it goes into so many different directions. Sometimes somebody who reads a thriller, he's going to say, “This was a scary book. This was horror.” Whereas for me, it might be a different experience.

Oftentimes, it's really difficult to label what exactly it is. It's not clear cut. It's not like cut and dry that we know exactly what's going on. It's very abstract. I sometimes write abstract stuff that I don't even know what genre it is going to fit in.

It, again, comes back to what the reader feels about it. So some people are going to tell me this was a very good thriller book. So I tell them, okay, but I didn't have in mind to write a thriller book. This was supposed to be horror, but for them, that was what they saw.

Joanna: Yes, I think it's interesting. Now, one of the subgenres I love—I love some really small niches—and one is merfolk horror, so bad mermaids and bad mermen. So I have your book, They Came From The Ocean, on my to-be-read list at the moment. I wondered—

What are some of the horror tropes you love and come back to?

You said you write all over the place, but what do you come back to? And what do your readers love best?

Boris: The good thing is that my readers are very diverse, and I'm very grateful for that because when I did start writing, I didn't want to write just one subgenre. I believe that just like we have mood readers, we also probably have mood writers.

I'd say that I'm a mood writer. I'm going to write maybe two or three paranormal books, then I'm going to get bored of it, and I’m going to move on to something else. Let's do, for example, cult horror.

Then I'm going to get bored with that and move onto some something else, maybe a creature feature because creature features, in my opinion, they don't require as much planning. I guess it's more straightforward.

When I want to get into something complicated, I go back into, for example, you mentioned They Came From The Ocean. This is still one of my most popular creature features. I think one of the reasons for that is the fact that we have not explored the ocean almost at all. We have mapped maybe 5% of the ocean floor.

The same thing with space. We're pretty much playing in our backyard. I believe that this kind of creates grounds for fear of the unknown. So you can play with sci-fi and fantasy over here, and you can leave it ambiguous because there's so much going on there which we don't know. There's so much we can find.

We discover thousands of species in the ocean every year. New species that we didn't even know exist, alien-like creatures and whatnot. There's just so much going on there. This has given birth to so many conspiracy theories about merfolk and so on.

I believe this fear of the unknown, it's one of the strongest fears. I think it's very easy to bank on that in sea horror, space horror, but pretty much anything where you're just staring sort of at the abyss.

Joanna: Yes, it's interesting.

Just as you were talking now, I was thinking about the sense of awe.

I mean, I go to the gothic cathedrals of Europe, and you walk in and feel this kind of awe at the majesty of this building. I've done quite a lot of scuba diving, and I felt the same sense of awe on the edge of the drop off with the deep ocean ahead of you. Like, oh my goodness, I am so small. I am so insignificant on the face of the earth. I find that feeling quite liberating, in a way.

As you were talking, I was like maybe that is why I like merfolk horror because the sense of awe, in a terrible sense, is kind of where we go with horror. You know what I mean?

Boris: Exactly, exactly. I totally agree with you. It's like you said, you go to this place, and you can just sort of feel the echo of what might have happened. Now, it doesn't need to be necessarily true. I think it's just our imagination conjures all sorts of different things.

Like when we both stare at the dark room, you and I are going to see different things. I think that's the beauty of it, that we can conjure so many things that might have happened there. This can, especially for writers, be very good, but also for readers.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. Now, I'm also always interested in sense of place in writing, and one of your books, I think, is based upon your hometown. So tell us more about Serbia because many people listening are in the US or the UK and might not know that much. Also—

Tell us why you turned your home town into horror.

Boris: So Serbia is a very superstitious place. I think all Slavic countries are. Not all of it ties into horror, some of them are innocuous. Some of them are like, don't walk through the cornfield, don't go out after thunder, and so on. Then there are also the scary parts.

My grandmother, who lived most of her life in a small village, she had a bevy of stories, scary stories. My mother, also, because she was told by her mother. So they told me stories, and they were very nonplussed about this. The way they told me these stories, it was like it was a normal occurrence.

There was a case I remember that was right after my grandmother had passed. On the day of the funeral, my mother came to me and she said, “Tonight you might feel a presence in your room.”

I asked, “What? What do you mean?” She said, “Oh, you might feel like somebody is touching your face. You might hear your name being whispered. Don't worry, that's just your grandma probably visiting you.” So I thought, okay, well, that's not nightmare material at all.

So there were lots of superstitious beliefs over here, like those. Then on top of that, my hometown, it was actually and probably still is—I haven't looked into it lately—it was number one by suicides in all of Europe.

So there were lots of rumors as to why this was happening. We knew that people are very negative, they're very pessimistic, but what was going on? The town was built on top of a swamp, so there were rumors maybe noxious gasses causing them to have mental breakdowns or something.

Then there were rumors of cults, very secretive cults, that were hiding in the woods, leaving clues for people who can join if they manage to solve those clues, and so on.

This all inspired me to conduct an investigation during the writing of Suicide Town, which was my book inspired by my hometown. When you're in a small town like this, I believe there is always something going on.

It doesn't need to be a dark history or anything like that, sometimes it's just the way the people look at outsiders. Whether they're polite, whether they're rude, how they communicate with each other, there is just so much going on.

I got so much inspiration just from interviewing people there, and that helped me to kind of put together a book which blended the old Creepypasta stories along with something that was a full-fledged novel.

Joanna: I like that.

Where we live obviously has such an impact on us, whether it's earlier on in life or whatever.

When I moved here to Bath, I was really struggling with this place. Like, do I want to live here, and what does that mean? My book Map of Shadows has a dark side of it, and it opens in Bath.

Then I found that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Bath, and I found out all this dark stuff about Bath, and that it wasn't just famous for Jane Austen. I was like, I can't live somewhere that's sort of Jane Austen and Bridgerton. Then I discovered this dark side of Bath, and I was like, oh, yes, okay. I can live here now.

Boris: Exactly, and that's what I mentioned earlier. It's like you can see horror everywhere. Sometimes you've got to squint, but it is everywhere. Back when I lived in my old apartment, there was a radio tower across from it. Every night at 9pm the lights would turn on, and they would blink for a while, and then they would stop.

I would see it every night, and I would start to wonder—and this was the paranoid part of me—what if they're now releasing some kind of a signal to brainwash us? Maybe this is like a secret government experiment.

This actually eventually gave me an idea for my book Radio Tower, which was a very popular book back in the day. Anywhere you go, everything you see, you can see horror if you just look hard enough. I think it's just that our brains are desensitized and they are protecting us from the scary stuff.

Joanna: Yes, I think you're right. I laugh because I have the same mind. I mean, people listening will write other genres, and I think perhaps somebody who, let's say writes romance, and they're seeing that tower, that message, maybe their mind says, “Oh, that is someone signaling their love in space.” Maybe it's a sci-fi romance or something. Whereas you and I would see something darker.

I think we all have our natural tendency as to what we see, and where we find ideas.

It's just being open to them.

Boris: It's like exactly what you just mentioned now. I had one example where I had mentioned my lighthouse horror book, which I'm going to write.

A romance author had contacted me, a friend of mine, and she asked, like, “Okay, but my brain is not comprehending what's going to happen next. Is he going to fall in love with someone? Is he like alone there, and he's going to find somebody, the love of his life?” I was like, oh, boy, do I have news for you.

Joanna: Yes, feel free to write your own romance in a lighthouse!

Boris: Exactly.

Joanna: I mean, I guess I know a bit about Serbia. I'm in my late 40s and European.

Serbia has a difficult political history. Do you find that ever comes into your work?

Boris: That is interesting. That's an interesting question. I do find that the current situation, like the difficulty with the economy and all that, sort of slips into my stories from time to time.

There were a couple of books that I wrote which were set in Europe, but luckily, most of my books that I write are set in America. So it's sort of detached from the political and socioeconomic situation in Serbia. However, since I've lived here all my life, obviously, it's going to be impossible to just completely eliminate that.

So there are cases where I'm going to try to hint at certain things, but I try not to do it too often because I think it becomes obvious when an author tries to insert his own views into a book.

Joanna: Yes, it's one of my sort of things is I really enjoy the research about places. It's a fascinating topic. So I mean, on that, we should say your accent, you have an American accent, basically.

Boris: Well, thank you. Yes, and lots of people wonder how I learned English. What happened? Basically, back when I was a kid, when we had cartoons, we didn't have subtitles, we didn't have synchronized or anything. I had to watch in English. So if I wanted to understand it, I had to learn English.

So at an early age, up north where I live, we speak Serbian and Hungarian. These are the two main languages. Unfortunately, my Hungarian is terrible. I'm learning it right now. My parents had tried to force me to learn it, but I was more into English.

They said that I refuse with every atom of my being, and I instead focused on learning English. This was very beneficial for me because I write books in English. I'd even go as far as to say that my English is better than my Serbian these days.

Joanna: Do you translate things into Serbian?

I mean, it must be quite a small book market.

Boris: Exactly. Writing in Serbian, I guess since I grew up with all these American movies, Hollywood movies, cartoons, read books in English, it felt more at home for me. The Serbian market is very small, but the Serbian horror market is minuscule. It is not existing pretty much.

As I said, there are so many people who are very much against it. I've even had people in Serbia, since certain parts are very religious, many of them are going to ask me, like, “Oh, but what do you think? How would God feel about you writing horror?”

I would need to explain to them that I'm not writing manuals for summoning demons, I'm just writing horror books.

Joanna: I laugh, because with Blood Vintage I've been just getting a whole ton of emails about this kind of thing and how much I must be summoning demons. I'm like, seriously, just read the book. It's not about that. It is funny, isn't it?

We all have these preconceptions of what things are based on stuff. So I respect people's opinions, but read stuff before you make a decision.

I do want to come onto short stories, you mentioned them at the beginning. You write short stories, you write novels, as do I.

How do you decide whether an idea is a short story or a full-length book?

Boris: Well, the problem with my writing is I'm a pantser, and I usually don't know what is going to happen pretty much until I'm close to the end. So sometimes it's not going to be known whether it's a novella, a short story, or a full-length novel, until I'm pretty much close to the end.

A lot of times I get this sort of inkling for writing a short story based on a dream or whatever. I don't like the commitment, so I'm just going to go and churn out a short story in two or three days. I like that because I don't need to do extensive planning and plotting out for the whole for the whole book. You can just sit down, you can write it, and you're done.

These days, I try to focus more on novels because I like the challenge. I find it way more challenging. At the same time, as my writing has evolved, my books have become more descriptive. So there is a lot of atmospheric buildup, there's a lot of suspense, there's a lot of world building and character development.

Short stories don't really give you the freedom to do that. It's very much getting into the meat and potatoes, just get straight to the point. Whereas in a book, in a novel, you actually have time to do the slow burn.

That's where I got a lot of inspiration from Stephen King because his books are exactly like that. For about 70%, there's nothing going on, and then suddenly it just spirals out of control. I just love that kind of story.

Joanna: I'm laughing again because I know what you mean with Stephen King. Of course, he has short stories as well. I really like writing short stories, and similar to you, if there's an idea that just is annoying me, that I want to get out my head—

I feel like sometimes I can just put that idea into a short story, and then it's out of my head and that leaves room for other things.

Boris: Exactly, and you can always do both. Some of my short stories from NoSleep actually got adapted into full novels. You can do that. It's absolutely possible.

It's just for me, it's easier to adapt a novel into a short story than the other way around because when it comes to turning a short story into a novel, you need to be careful with not adding redundant parts.

There have been authors who have made books from NoSleep to full-fledged novels, and what happened was there were lots of repetitive parts that were unnecessary, but that sort of worked really well in the short story. This is a trap that needs to be avoided when adapting one to the other.

Joanna: Yes, it's interesting because I write these short stories and then I publish them as just short stories on my website, on Amazon, and a lot of the reviews are, “This is too short.” I'm like, it's a short story. That is what it is. It is that length. But people say, “Oh, this could be a novel.”

I haven't even considered turning a short story into a novel because I feel like it's a nice, self-contained thing that, in my mind, is now finished. It is done. That's how it worked. Now I can't imagine it being anything else.

Boris: I'm exactly like that for some of the stories, especially the longer ones. I had just finished writing a trilogy, and it took me about six months. Before I finished writing it, I was thinking of doing a short story and then posting it to NoSleep so I can promote it.

Then after writing it for six months, no, I am done. I want to move onto something else. I do not want to see that book ever again.

Joanna: I guess another question on short stories is some authors think they're “not worth writing” because readers prefer long form books. You might not have enough to do an anthology like you did. They're hard to sell.

Why do you think short stories are worth writing?

Boris: I think there are many benefits to writing short stories, but it all comes down to who you ask. I know a lot of authors who actually make a living with short stories, anthologies, and they're doing really well.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the benefits of writing short stories is you don't need to commit to it as you would to a full-fledged book. So you can write a short one, you can take a break, you can maybe come back after six months, one year, whenever you feel like it.

Then after a while, you're going to have an anthology with really no absolute commitment, which is great. Now I see that some authors, they just put short stories together into an anthology. They sell them that way.

I see some other authors who are actually selling them as standalones at 99 cents. Now, selling short stories on Amazon, and I think this is a little trick here. It's good to diversify. That's the first thing.

I don't want to be personally known as the short story author.

I want to be labeled as somebody who's going to make a groundbreaking novel.

When it comes to short stories, there's so much diversification. There's so much advantage. For example, you can post those short stories to WattPad, to NoSleep, and you can scrape some money up from other sources.

My short stories, they still get offers from YouTube narrators, and they give me payment for the rights for narration. Then you got animators. Then you got, if you're really lucky, these content scouts who can actually find your story, they like it, and they want to produce it into a short movie, an actual movie, whatever else.

There are so many ways, and there's so many rising platforms for short stories where you can post them and you get royalties from it. So I think for short stories, Amazon is not a bad choice, but there's not like one wrong or one right way to do things. You can do it in so many ways.

Joanna: You said there's people making a living just with short stories.

Are they submitting to anthologies through the horror traditional publishers?

Boris: From what I know, doing anthologies with other authors usually doesn't yield a lot of money, sometimes nothing at all. I personally have been in some anthologies and they were not profitable.

They were very good for exposure, and they were very good for getting new readers. Somebody who reads the anthology because of some other author is going to read yours, and he might be like, okay, I like this author, I'm going to check their other books out.

When it comes to earning a full-time living with short stories, I know a few authors who actually write all of their stories, they compile them into their own anthologies, and they sell them like that. It works really well for them, but I think it's all about what kind of an audience you cultivate.

So if you start right away with cultivating short story readers then they're going to be great, you're going to have those. If you start with 99 cents deals, if you start with KU, it all depends.

I have personally tried going wide.

I'm in KU, Kindle Unlimited, and I've tried going wide. Crickets. Nothing happened.

I think it all depends on what kind of an audience you have. For me, it's been years now, I think going into a different venue would probably not be as successful.

Joanna: Let's talk about that because I know you know David Viergutz, and he was on the show, I guess once this goes out, a couple of months ago. He talked on the show about the fact that Amazon didn't really work for his books. He moved out of KU and is basically selling mainly a lot from his website.

You mentioned there, KU is good for you, and you had crickets elsewhere. So I wondered—

Why do you think your books have had traction on KU?

Are there things that you think might work for other authors who are struggling there?

Boris: So I've been wondering about this for a long time as well. I remember David Viergutz and I, we were talking about it for a while, and we were pretty much doing the same things. I was seeing success on Amazon. For him, nothing.

It was like Amazon didn't like him. I have no idea what was going on there. He moved on to direct, which was really good. He's very successful there now.

For me, so what happened was I had first found 20Booksto50K. I published a few books, and there were some traction, but not enough to earn significant income.

I started doing marketing, but it wasn't going so well. I figured, you know what, my marketing is probably going to suck. I'm doing everything I can, but I'm going to have to take into consideration it's probably going to be bad.

Therefore, I'm going to use the method that Michael Anderle mentioned, which is publish enough books that you're going to be earning enough money. I already had three or four books that were already finished, I just hadn't published them yet.

So I started publishing them, I started running Amazon ads on them, and I started seeing more and more traction on Amazon. I believe that in today's era, which might change very soon, the algorithm is a very important thing.

I think what I did was I managed to switch the algorithm into my favor by giving readers books that they liked.

Then Amazon started showing my books to other readers.

Nowadays, for example, I have mostly organic traffic. I do run ads on my new launches, but after, I turn them off. My books are gliding very nicely. They're doing everything organically. This was probably a long history of showing that my Amazon account is doing well.

So if you pair that with something like a BookBub deal, that's going to probably change everything. That was, for me, what really got me into working full time. Up until then, it was going very slow.

Pair everything that you know. Ads, newsletter lists, newsletter swaps, newsletter stacks, running ads on different platforms, Amazon ads, Facebook ads.

Some people run them on Instagram. Even TikTok these days is very profitable for some authors.

If you pair those, and you find what works for you, give it a strong push, and it's bound to work. I've even tested this with some pen names because I wanted to know what exactly worked.

With Kindle Unlimited, unfortunately it's very difficult to tell what worked because we don't have enough information like we do with direct. With direct, you can exactly tell where each sale came from, and you can pinpoint what's working and what isn't. With Kindle Unlimited, you have to guess a little bit.

So I'd experimented with different genres, different pen names, and the result was the same. If you do a strong push, whether it's with Facebook ads or Amazon ads—for me, personally, it's Facebook ads—putting the book in Kindle Unlimited, doing 99 cent deals. For me, that worked perfectly and still does.

Joanna: Are most of your sales ebooks, or do you also do print and audio?

Boris: I do all of that. Audio, print books, ebooks, even hardcovers, but most of my income does come from Kindle Unlimited. From the page reads, about 60 to 65% comes from that. The rest is ebook sales.

Print, not so much. I tried switching to direct just to sell print over there. Unfortunately, selling from my own store was not profitable because shipping from Serbia to America or the UK is very expensive. So I ended up sticking with eBook sales instead.

Joanna: Yes. Although, just on that, I mean, you could use a printer in the US.

Boris: Yes, like Ingram Spark and others. I have tried using those, but unfortunately, I didn't see any kind of sales. So maybe the algorithm over there is not in my favor.

Joanna: I think this is what's so interesting, and that's why I wanted to mention that, because —

What works for one author might not work for another, even in the same genre

— which is why it's good to compare you and David. Again, we're not talking about him behind his back, he said this on the show. He said it didn't work for him.

I mean, I've looked at both of your books. There's a clear genre with the covers. They're not dramatically different, as far as I could see. It was like—Why does it work for one author and not another author?

As you say, you just don't know. You just have to try things, and then if it does take off, as it did for you, you're leaning into that. It didn't for David, and he chose another path. As we said, he's doing very well. So it's so hard, isn't it, to know what to do if somebody is new, or like me, writing in a new genre.

Boris: Exactly.

So many authors give up, unfortunately, before they should.

I know there were so many aspiring authors who wrote an entire series and it just didn't work.

Sometimes books, they're just dead on arrival. I've had books like those as well. I've had books like my personal favorite, The Grayson Legacy, it just did not sell no matter what I did. I changed the covers, I changed the blurb, I even re-edited the entire thing. Nothing.

So I just couldn't understand. I still don't understand what is going on. I've asked around to other authors, and they tell me, okay, the cover is on point. The blurb is on point, it tells you exactly what it's about. It's just not selling. Maybe it's just currently not doing anything for the market.

You can still use those books. So I personally use The Grayson Legacy as a reader magnet, and you can use that to actually get new readers. They read that book, and they're going to be like, “Okay, I like this one. Let me check out the other books as well.” So it can still be used for something.

It's like we mentioned, there's not one wrong or right venue to take. You can go so many different directions. There are so many successful authors who are wide, and there are many who are in Kindle Unlimited.

So I know there's a lot of rivalry between the two. Kindle Unlimited authors are going to be talking bad about wide and vice versa. I really believe there's really no wrong way of doing things in this business.

Joanna: Yes, and on that, a lot of horror is standalone rather than series.

Do you write mostly standalone, or have you broken into series?

Boris: I've written both, and I can definitely say that series sell way better. Leaving books with cliff hangers and then moving on to the next one, it just naturally sells much, much better. It sells so much better that even the pre-orders for the next book in the series, they're going to be, organically, very good.

Whereas with standalones, people finish it, they're done. They need a break. Sometimes we do have readers who just want to jump straight into the next one, but when you finish a standalone, that next book doesn't have to be your book. They can start reading another book by another author.

Whereas if you give them something in a series like a cliffhanger, and it's a good enough story to get them into it, they're not going to be able to resist it. They're going to move onto the next one.

The latest trilogy I wrote, they're all connected, all three books. They're not standalones. Whereas most of my other books are standalones. Only after I started writing the series did I see a significant rise in my income.

Joanna: That's interesting.

How do you write a horror series when one of the things that happens in horror is that people die?

Do you have to just create a much bigger cast?

Boris: Oh, yes, exactly. You can create a big cast, and there's a lot of these swappable characters. Some characters die, other characters get introduced. You got to think of it as a TV show with multiple seasons. So you kind of follow that concept, and it works very well.

You give them a fast paced environment. Every chapter that I end, I usually end it with a cliffhanger. So not only are they unable to stop reading the series, they're unable to stop reading the book.

What happens is I have so many readers tell me, like, “Oh, I lost a lot of sleep because I had to keep reading this.” For me, this is a huge success.

So writing a series, it's trickier because when you write about a paranormal house, for example, I did not see how this can be adapted into a series. People would get fatigued from that. So it has to be something completely original.

Like last year, I wrote a zombie series. This was more of an apocalyptic series, but it also blended horror elements to it. It was not a typical survival series. This year it was like you mentioned. A huge cast, lots of things going on, and each book was centered around a certain theme.

So you give the characters a problem they face. Just when they've solved that problem, a new one arises, and that leads into the next book.

Joanna: It's interesting, though, because you said you're a pantser—I say discovery writer—and I find that even though I have series, each book is really standalone. In that you can finish it, and I'm like, okay, story has finished. So in my discovery writing mind, I can't seem to think beyond that one story.

How do you write series as a pantser?

Boris: Well, mostly luck. You just write and hope for the best. For certain big books like those, like series, you have to have at least a vague outline. So I try to have, like, point A and point Z.

So I know what the beginning is going to be like, I know what the ending might be like, but going through the story, that is where the troubles arise. This is where there's so much rewriting, so much deletion. Thousands of words lost is the most painful thing ever. 

I think it takes a lot of effort too, because when you actually have something in your mind when you think of a scene, and when you actually start writing the scene, you figure, you know, this doesn't sound too well. It doesn't look as well as I imagined in my head. Then you need to change the whole thing.

This impacts the previous scenes, the subsequent scenes, and this is where the problem arises. This is why I'm trying to transition more into not being a pantser, but planning more. I'm just not good enough to take notes like that, and my mind is volatile.

It's like I'm going to be walking through the park, and I'm suddenly going to think, “Okay, this would make a great idea for the story. I need to change it immediately.” So I'm not good with taking notes.

Joanna: Yes, it is interesting. We all have our struggles, but I still enjoy being a discovery writer. I also want to ask you because, of course, you're in Europe—

Is there a network that you're part of for horror writers?

Or just indie authors? Or do you go to American things? Like the Horror Writers Association is mostly in the US.

Boris: Yes. Funnily enough, I didn't even know there were lots of horror authors in Europe, especially in the Slavic region. I know a few authors who mostly use pen names because of the stigma, the superstitions and whatever, and they like to keep secretive.

For me, personally, I am connected with authors from America because that's how I started. I didn't know there was anything else in Europe. Since most of my books are set in the US, I try to be more aligned with that.

I have not actually been to any American gatherings yet. With book signings, I do have one next year, Books and Brews in Indiana. It's a little difficult to go to all those events.

I can see there's so many of them, and I want to attend all of them, but it takes just 10 hours just to get to the east coast. Now, getting anything further than that, it's hell. It's very expensive. I try to limit myself to only the most important events.

Joanna: Yes, and the jet lag is a killer, right?

Boris: The worst thing is that it's not bad when you're in the US, but when you return to Europe, terrible. It just sort of catches up with you.

Joanna: Oh, yes. I really struggle with that. I'm going to Author Nation. In fact, that'll be the week after this goes out, and I'm already like, I have to organize all my meetings as early in the day as possible because I'm up at 3am going, “Woo-hoo!” and then by 4pm I need to go to bed.

Boris: Oh, exactly.

Joanna: It is difficult. Well, we are out of time.

Where can people find you and your books online?

Boris: Well, all my books, since they're in KU, they can find them on Amazon. They can contact me on my website, AuthorBorisBacic.com. Or if they want to get in touch, they can also email me. I love hearing from readers, from authors. So, yes, those are good ways to go.

Joanna: Thanks so much for your time, Boris. That was great.

Boris: Thank you.

The post Writing Horror With Boris Bacic first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How do you successfully scale an author business? How do you delegate to your team as well as continue to research and write the books you love? With award-winning crime author, Rachel McLean.

In the intro, new Kindle devices [Amazon]; new European markets for Spotify audiobooks [Spotify]; customisable audio with Google NotebookLM;
Amazon Ads launches new AI tools for advertisers;
Enhancing Creativity with AI Tools [ALLi]; My Lessons Learned from 10 Million Downloads of the show; and Blood Vintage Kickstarter wrap-up.

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Rachel McLean is the award-winning author of the Dorset Crime series, as well as other crime books, and has now sold over 2 million copies.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Making the decision to scale your author business
• Hiring multiple freelancers with different skillsets
• Money and lifestyle as a source of motivation
• Writing with multiple co-authors and creating a small imprint
• How to write what readers want to read
• Moving your readers from KU to other platforms
• Selling audiobooks direct using Shopify and BookFunnel
• Using AI tools for location research
• Publishing videos on socials to humanize your brand

You can find Rachel at RachelMcLean.com.

Transcript of Interview with Rachel McLean

Joanna: Rachel McLean is the award-winning author of the Dorset Crime series, as well as other crime books, and has now sold over 2 million copies. So welcome back to the show, Rachel.

Rachel: Thank you for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. Now, you were last on the show in November 2022, and we talked about how you pivoted into crime fiction. So we're just going to jump straight into things today.

You started out with your Dorset Crime series, but you now have five series in total, and you work with multiple authors under your imprint, Ackroyd Publishing.

How has your business changed over the last few years?

Rachel: In some ways it hasn't changed that much, and in other ways, it's changed massively. So the core of my business, which is about writing crime books that readers want to read, I write in a very similar style. Obviously, my craft has developed over that time.

I'm really like doubling down on engaging with readers, I see that as actually, after the writing, my most important job because that's the thing that I can do, and my team can't do for me. So that hasn't really changed, apart from the fact that it is scaled because I've got so many more readers now.

In the sort of day-to-day management of my business, that has changed hugely. I've now got a team of seven people who work for me. They're all freelance. They each work a couple of days a week, and they do various roles.

I've got a publishing and production team, and they project manage all the books, do the cover design, pull all the files together, manage the editorial and so forth.

Then I've got a marketing team who help me run my shop and do advertising and data for me. I've got somebody who liaises with bookshops. I've got somebody who does AV work for me.

I've also got a number of co-authors who I work with now.

A lot of my books are co-authored with people who I've known for years and who I've been working with as part of my writing group for years. That enables me to sort of manage a bigger business, which takes up more of my time, while still producing more books now than I was able to produce without them.

Also, it's really good fun, particularly on the creative side when you're generating ideas for a new book or a new series, I get to work with other people.

So we'll go for a trip to the location that the book's going to be in, and we'll walk around, and we'll sit in cafes and things. We'll chat about what's going to be in the book, and we'll come up with ideas. It's really enjoyable.

Joanna: Oh, so many follow up questions. The first one I have is—and this is quite a personal thing for me, and also people listening—because I feel like what you have done is you have gone from being an author to essentially being the CEO of a much bigger business.

Like you said, you have seven people you're co-writing. So at some point, you made the decision, I am going to scale the size of my business and the income, obviously. You decided that there was something you wanted to do around running a bigger publishing company.

How did you make the decision to scale your business?

Obviously, it is a much bigger deal than, like me, I have not made that choice. It's something I come up against over and over again, and I always step back from. It's like I actually don't want a bigger business. So what was that moment, so other people listening might be able to figure that out for themselves?

Rachel: Yes, it's interesting because I always thought I didn't want a bigger business and I didn't want to manage people. I think that's because my experience of managing people in the past had been in huge organizations.

I worked for government agencies and all sorts where it was very process driven. You had to do performance management on a certain day, and you had to manage people in a certain way, and you and they didn't really have all that much freedom over what you did.

Whereas I'm finding that managing people within my own business is very different because A, I get to recruit them, and I get to find people who are a really good fit for my business and have got the skills that I need and skills often that I don't have.

Then B, I get to work with them in a way that works for us, and it's really flexible because we're such a small business. It's not like one person has a particular job title and they can only do that thing. People end up dipping into other people's jobs, and we all work really closely together.

I get everybody together on a fairly regular basis. So we've got a Christmas lunch planned in December. We have an away event in the spring where we all go down to Dorset and have a couple of days together.

We have a summer lunch where we get all our editors and narrators and everybody, the whole full team together. So I found that I enjoy that much more than I thought I might. I really do enjoy it.

The point at which I had that light bulb moment, I guess in a way, I went to the 20Books Mastermind in Majorca immediately after Self-Publishing Show last year.

I went to that specifically with the goal of talking to people who were very successful, and had been very successful for a long time and were sustaining that. I wanted to learn from them because I was at a point where the Dorset Crime series had taken off.

The Kindle Storyteller Award had a massive impact on my sales, and I didn't know how to sustain that. I knew that the workload involved in that was more than I could do on my own. At that point, I was thinking, well, I need to sort of clone myself.

I need to find somebody who would do all the business side of things.

I actually offered that job to my wife, and she turned it down.

Joanna: I'm glad she did. Saved your marriage!

Rachel: I'm glad she did now, as well, because we're much happier having different jobs. She has a job. She works for the University of Birmingham, and she's very happy doing that. It's a whole different type of environment from what I do.

I went to the Mastermind in Majorca, and there was a talk on running your publishing business with a team. The light bulb for me with that was the fact that you don't have to hire one person to do the business management.

You can hire multiple people to each do a part of it and to each work a certain number of hours. I already had a PA, Jane. She's theoretically a VA, but she lives quite close to me, so she's not all that virtual. We do see each other.

She was already doing some of the admin for me, but I needed somebody to manage the publishing process for each book. That was the thing that I was finding was a real sticking point for me because I have a terrible memory. I was forgetting what the deadlines were.

I was uploading books to the KDP Dashboard moments before I had to in order to fulfill a pre-order. I was really disorganized. I was thinking, how do I find this person who can manage that process for me?

It just so happens that Rebecca Collins from Hobeck Books, she and I are friends, and she posted something on Facebook about some work that she was doing for another client that was exactly that work. I thought, oh, hang on a minute, I didn't know Rebecca did that.

So I gave her a call, and we had a chat, and it turned out that she had availability, and she had exactly the skills I need. So it started with Rebecca, and then it slowly grew. So I've sort of added one person at a time, and over time people's roles have grown, so there's been more work for them to do.

Rebecca's gone from doing one day a week to doing two days a week. I've got Catherine Matthews, who also works for SPS, she's running my shop.

The great thing is she also runs Clare Lydon's shop. She learns things when she's doing each of our shops that she then uses in the other one, which works for both me and Clare. Clare and I are friends as well. She writes LesFic, and I think I recommended Catherine to Clare.

Having people on my team who have got experience and skills in areas that I don't necessarily have, or who can dedicate a bit more time to learning about something specific.

So the Shopify store, Catherine and I were both quite new to that when we set it up. I said to her, well, I will pay for your time learning how to use Shopify and how to get my store set up. She went away and has been really good at just taking it on board and working things out for herself.

I could have done that, but it would have taken me a lot of time that would have detracted from the writing.

The other real challenge I've got is in my personal life, I have an autistic son. He's not severely affected by his autism, but it does mean that I have to be available for him more than you might do for another teenager, and that can really throw things.

Having people that I can delegate things to, it's incredibly helpful, because I know that my business isn't going to just slide if my son needs me. It means that I've been able to focus on him and develop my author career at the same time. I'm not sure I would have been able to do both at this level.

Joanna: Yes, I love that. It's so interesting, because you must be ambitious, because this is an ambitious move.

Rachel: Yes.

Joanna: Do you identify with ambition? Is that a word you identify with?

Rachel: I do.

Joanna: Yes, but you haven't mentioned, oh, I want to be a seven figure or a multi-seven figure author.

Is money a motivation?

Rachel: Money is a motivation. That's less about the cash, It's more about a lifestyle. I have a lifestyle now that I really enjoy. So I spend a lot of time traveling. A lot of my books are based in Dorset, and I have a flat in Dorset now because I spend so much time down there.

It's right on the beach, and it's an absolutely wonderful place to go and clear my head, and get fresh air, and go for walks, and write, and take the family down as well. We spent a lot of time down there in the summer.

I'm working on a series, which is a spin off series for one of my characters, and each book will be set in a different European city.

Joanna: Oh, I wonder why?!

Rachel: Oh, let's travel to those European cities. I listen to you talking about your research trips, and I think, yes, I want a bit of that. I'm going to Dorset, and I'm going to Scotland, and I'm going to Cumbria for those series. It's great, and they're wonderful places to visit, but why not go to Paris?

Joanna: Then you're going to have one set in like a Maldives scuba diving resort!

Rachel: Absolutely. I've got a series that I write with Millie Ravensworth, who's actually two authors, Heide Goody and Iain Grant, that is set in London on a vintage route master London tour bus.

We've got two amateur sleuths who, because they're running these tours, they find themselves in the middle of mysteries in iconic London landmarks. We were thinking, why don't we get one of them to go and work as a guide on a cruise ship or something so we can do that? So there's a bit of a debate going on about who gets to do that research trip if we do it.

Joanna: Yes, and I think this is important, too, because —

This is a lifestyle that we're doing for creative reasons, but also to have input into our ideas.

Like, I never have any problem justifying this. I do want to come back to that I'm fascinated with the ambition to do this because you've already grown so much. You're working with these co-writers, but essentially, what you're building with Ackroyd Publishing is it's a publishing imprint that does crime books.

It made me think of Bookouture. If American authors don't know, Bookouture is an imprint. It started in crime, and it grew, and it got bought for a ton of money. I wondered—

Are you looking forward into the future and seeing that you might sell the business?

Or that you want to grow much bigger? Or do you have grand plans?

Rachel: I think I've toyed with the idea of growing and publishing other authors. So I do have a couple of authors who are Ackroyd Publishing publishers who are not crime authors. One is my wife, Sally Brooks, so that's kind of cheating, but she writes lesbian rom coms and sapphic rom coms.

She has a day job. She loves the writing, but doesn't want to do the marketing and business side of it. So I said to her, well, how about if Ackroyd Publishing published you? To be honest, it doesn't mean we're working together because it's actually the team who are doing that. I'm not very heavily involved in the publication of her book.

I've also published Hazel Ward, who writes women's fiction. She is somebody who I've known for years, and I've been a beta reader for her books since she started. So it's very much been really, really slowly doing that. Only working with people who I know are really good writers and really good to work with.

I talked to Keshini at Hera, who published my paperbacks, about what it's like managing a lot of authors. It's hard work, and you've got to juggle a lot of different expectations and a lot of different styles of working in terms of what they expect from the publisher. I'm quite wary of that.

I'm more interested in building a group of co-authors who work with me, so that I am still the brand.

I'm building a really loyal readership. I've got thousands of people who will buy my books on the days they come out.

What I do, it's more like the James Patterson model, in a way. So I'm working with a co-author. They write the first draft and I write the second draft. We plan it together.

So what I do in the second draft is I will add in character detail, because I have characters who move across series, and I will also add in location detail, because we tend to write about locations that I know about. Although the Cumbria Crime ones, Joel Hames is getting to know Cumbria better than I do.

I will also tweak the style so that it's a style that my readers are familiar with. So that when a reader comes to a book that's co-written by me and any one of my co-writers, they will be slightly different. They won't just be exactly the same as a Rachel McLean book that I write on my own, but they will feel familiar.

They'll have a similar sort of structure, in terms of the number of chapters, the length of chapters, the style of writing, what you can expect from that book, the level of gore that you get in a crime book, the level of humor.

Although that's different for the cozy mysteries, they're definitely funnier. That's why I write with Heide and Iain is because they are comedy writers, and they're really good at that.

It's about building up that brand and bringing other people into it and involving them to help create more IP.

Also, they're all people who I know and have worked with have known. I mean, Heide and Iain, they were the people who first got me into self-publishing, so it's really nice to be able to involve them in it and work with them.

They both live fairly close to me, so we'll do research. One of the series we're writing is in Birmingham, so we'll meet up, and we'll go for a walk around the locations and find the place the body is going to be dumped and that sort of thing, and then go and have lunch and plan the book. So it makes it really enjoyable working. I'm working with friends.

The team in Ackroyd Publishing that I've built as well, we're developing friendships within the team. It was great when I got everybody together last March and we went down to Dorset to see everybody getting on so well and enjoying themselves.

Obviously, that's important if you've got a really small team. So I think it just adds another dimension. It takes a little bit away from that loneliness of being a writer sitting in your room producing words.

Joanna: It doesn't sound like that's your life at all.

I love that you mentioned James Patterson because he gets a lot of flak because he is the most read author, the richest author, the guy who sells the most books. As you say, he co-writes with lots and lots of different people, in lots and lots of different series.

He does still have his own, I think that Alex Cross series is just his. I think what's also interesting is you have Ackroyd, or you mentioned before, “crime books that readers want to read.”

I just want to remind listeners if they don't know, and I'll link back to our first interview, but you were not successful with your first books, right?

Rachel: No.

Joanna: And you pivoted to write crime books that readers want to read. So can you maybe just go into that a bit more? As in—

How do you know what readers want to read?

How do you add in this kind of Rachel McLean secret sauce that makes your book sell so much after failing at the beginning?

Rachel: Well, I started out by writing books that crossed genres and found it really hard to market them in any of the genres that they were in. What was useful was that I learned a lot about marketing during that time.

So when I did pivot to crime, I already had a head start there because I already had a mailing list that I'd started to grow. I already knew how to advertise and so forth.

What I did, it was January 2020, and I was at a point in my day job—I was a technical writer, I wrote about WordPress—and WordPress was in the throes of changing the programming language that it used.

I was either going to have to go back and learn JavaScript, or I was going to have to double down on the publishing and make a success of that. I was definitely keener on making a success of my writing than I was on learning JavaScript.

I thought, right, what do I need to do in order to reach more readers?

I was inspired by people like JD Kirk, Barry Hutchison and LJ Ross, and looking at what they'd done and the kind of books that they'd written.

Something that was becoming very prominent at the time was, in crime, the idea of the location being a key element and almost being like another character.

So my first series, which I wrote in 2020, was set in Birmingham. Those were the Zoe Finch books. I wrote those in Birmingham because I knew Birmingham like the back of my hand.

It actually turned out quite convenient because it was lock down and I couldn't have gone on research trips anywhere. I was using Google Maps the whole time. I was probably responsible for half the statistics on people using Google Maps that they do at the government briefings every evening.

What I did was I read authors of crime and thrillers who were very successful. So I read books by some of my comp authors who were published by the smaller digital-first publishers and the big indies. I read books by people like James Patterson and Dan Brown.

I pulled apart what it was about their books that worked and what readers liked. I also read their reviews.

I was inspired to do that by, I can't remember the name of it, but I think it's Six Figure Author by Chris Fox. He said, don't read your reviews, read your competitors reviews, and find out what it is that readers love or hate.

Sometimes what readers hate will be exactly the same as what they love because you'll get some readers who are turned off by the very thing that attracts other readers to the book. So I did that, and the thing that came out was the locations and the characters.

So I spent quite a lot of time identifying what my locations were going to be. Also a lot of time working on my characters and my central team, and I developed them. Then when the Zoe Finch series came to a close, I thought, right, where am I going to go next?

I'd been visiting Dorset since I was a child. I first went there as a baby. My parents had a caravan down there. So I know Dorset really, really well. So I thought, I'll go down to Dorset.

It felt quite risky moving onto another series, because Zoe Finch books had sold enough for me to be able to give up my day job. They hadn't been hugely successful, but I was a full time author, which was what I wanted to achieve. So I moved to Dorset, and it turned out to be the best thing I ever did because a lot more people want to read about Dorset than want to read about Birmingham.

Joanna: For Americans who might not know, it's a lovely coastal area, as opposed to a gritty, massive city.

Rachel: Exactly. Imagine reading about Maine as against reading about Boston, I suppose. The other thing that worked really well was the character that I moved to Dorset, DCI Lesley Clarke, she was Zoe's boss in the Zoe Finch books. So she was a DCI.

I always enjoy writing sidekicks. I sometimes find sidekicks are a bit more real in my mind because I can see them through the eyes of the protagonist. I loved writing Lesley, so I thought, I'm going to move this grumpy middle-aged Brummie down to Dorset and see how she copes and what they make of her.

People love Lesley. Some people hate her. I've sat in author events where people have had arguments over whether they like Lesley or not, but as far as I'm concerned, that means she's real in their minds whether they like her or not. She is quite grumpy and she doesn't suffer fools gladly.

So, yes, it turned out to be the best decision I ever could have made to write a series in Dorset. I thought I was bringing that series to a close nine books in because there was a series arc. That's another thing I always do in my books, there is always a series arc.

That might be police corruption or the death of a major character, well, who would have been a major character. So it's Lesley's predecessor. That came to a close, and I thought, right, that's it, I'm done with these books.

I constantly kept having people say, is Lesley coming back? When are you going to write Lesley again? I had about a year of that, so I'm now writing another nine books in that series.

The paperbacks will be published by Hera. So Hera have republished the Dorset Crime existing books in print, but they'll be publishing them as new books in paperback. So that'll be really interesting because I'll be getting new books into bookshops.

Joanna: That's a traditional publisher?

Rachel: Yes. So Hera, they are a small publisher, a bit like Bookouture. So Keshini Naidoo, she used to work for Bookouture. She was the woman who discovered Angela Marsons.

What I like about Hera is that they are all about mainstream fiction written by diverse authors. So their authors are not the normal run of the mill people you expect to be published by traditional publishers.

They were interested in my books because Lesley is gay, and I always have gay characters in my books. It's working really well working with Hera. The way they work, and their ethos and their values fit really well with mine.

Because they're small, I'm sure I get a lot more attention than I would if I was at a bigger publisher. We just work really well together.

Joanna: So I want to come onto something—

Amazon recently named you as one of the top 10 most read authors on Kindle Unlimited in the UK over the last 10 years.

[Press release here on Amazon]

That is astounding. Like, how did that feel, by the way?

Rachel: Oh, it felt amazing. It was really funny because the evening that it happened, JM Dalgliesh was number eight, and I was number nine. He posted a screenshot of it to Facebook where he cut it off under his name, and I thought, oh, I'm not on that list. Then Sally, my wife, she went and found the press release and said, “There you are on the list, you're just underneath him!” So I joked about it with him afterwards.

That felt like a huge achievement because there's some really big names there, and also there are people who've been writing a lot longer than me.

It's only been three and a bit years that I've been publishing my crime books, and to have sold enough to be one of the most read authors in KU in that time, it felt great.

My readers were lovely about it, because obviously I put in my newsletter and my social media, and readers were so pleased for me.

One of the things I love about being an author is that your readers want you to succeed, and they want to help you.

I refer to my readers as my reader army. I do things like when I've got a new edition of a paperback coming out, or a new book coming out, and I want them to buy in bookshops, I'll say to them, “Right, you're my reader army. I want you to go into bookshops and ask them to stock it.”

They'll do it. They want to help me out. So, yes, it was great.

Joanna: I wondered because you're so big on KU, which is obviously eBook first, you mentioned Shopify earlier, and also now books in bookstores.

How are you getting your readers to move from reading just in KU, into buying from your store, buying from bookshops, buying in other ways than they've been used to?

Rachel: Yes, that is a process that we're still working on and experimenting with. So Alex, who works on my advertising, he is experimenting with various ad campaigns that run to the store.

One of the main benefits of running ads to a store, as I know you've mentioned on your podcast, is the fact that you can use conversion ads instead of traffic ads in Facebook. So Facebook actually knows if they're converting, and can therefore run better targeted ads.

It also means that we have access to data. So I know who's buying books, and I can retarget them, and I can upsell and so forth.

Where I've had the most success is in audiobooks because I found that people seem to be less wedded to listen to an audiobook on Audible than they are to getting their eBooks on Amazon. People find it difficult to understand that you can read a book on your Kindle that you haven't bought from Amazon.

So I've been pushing quite hard on audiobooks. I've been pushing the fact that I have a release date for my audiobooks on my website, which is the same as the release date for the eBook and the paperback.

It's a reliable release date. If somebody pre-orders it from me, they will get their file on that date. Whereas Audible, I can't set a release date, I can't set a pre order. I found that starting with audiobooks has been quite successful.

I've been doing it mainly through my mailing list, through my newsletter, and slowly educating people and encouraging them.

My next experiment I'm running, right at the end of this month it starts. I'm running a kind of Kickstarter, but I'm running it on my website instead of on Kickstarter. So it will be a two week period. So I've already got a sign up page for people to be notified when it goes live, and it'll be a two week period.

I've produced a coffee table book, which is Rachel McLean's Dorset Crime Trail. It's the story of each of the locations from each of the books in the series and why I chose to write there. It gives you information about the location, but it's told through the lens of me doing research trips to those locations. It's very anecdotal. There are stories from my childhood in those locations and that kind of thing. Lots of photos, including stock imagery, but also my photos as well.

So that's going to be exclusive to my website for two weeks, and there's going to be bundles and so forth, and add ons, just like you would with Kickstarter.

I figured that it was probably easier, because I'm already trying to educate my readers to use my website, to continue doing that than to add another platform in right now. Crime readers tend to be older and tend to be less likely to be on Kickstarter.

I got the idea for doing this from Elana Johnson, who has done the same thing. She writes cozy—well, not cozy—sweet romance, and so the demographic of her readers is quite similar to mine. She has run “Kickstarters” on her website very successfully, so we'll see how it goes.

I mean, obviously it's the first one, and there'll be teething problems and so forth. It's turning out to be a lot more work than a normal launch. I was on a video call to Rebecca, my publishing manager, yesterday, and we were trying to work out all the dates.

So it was like, right, when does it go live? When do we have to place the orders? When do we send them out? When will they eventually be released? Bookshops want them as well, but I don't want bookshops getting them until after the Kickstarter.

Joanna: Which is not a Kickstarter.

Rachel: Which is not a Kickstarter. A Kickstarter, non-Kickstarter, yes.

Joanna: I think what you're talking about is essentially a bigger pre-order, and I think that's really important to note.

Kickstarter is a brand. It's a different website. It's a very different model.

What you're talking about, and what I think I'm going to do for a book as well next year, is that sort of pre-launch on your website for premium editions that you print after the pre-orders happen. Whereas indies are normally used to you can do a pre-order with an eBook, and it's done, and it just goes out, and not a big deal.

I think that's great, and I'm super jealous because I totally want to do a book like that around locations, but I have so many.

Rachel: Oh, and I know the problems that you've been having with your photographs of churches.

Joanna: Yes, photo permissions. Oh my goodness. Someone's just said to me that you just hire someone and they do all of that. It just takes a lot longer than I'm used to, but I think that's really interesting. On the audiobook—

You are selling the audiobooks through Shopify, so you're directing everyone to BookFunnel?

Rachel: Well, as soon as somebody makes the purchase in Shopify, BookFunnel then sends them the email with the file.

Joanna: Just so people know, this is another app that people have to have. They have to have the BookFunnel app to listen to the audio. It's fascinating to me that what you're saying is people are more, I guess, happy to download a new app for audio than they are to consider using BookFunnel to get an eBook onto their Kindle device, which, again, is not difficult at all.

I think the more people like you and me and everyone, the more people who are actually educating people on buying direct, the easier it's going to be. We have to remember, this is only year one or two of the kind of move into selling direct.

Fast forward five years, 10 years, where will we be then? I think it'll be a very interesting ecosystem of what we can do with these direct things. I love that you're doing so much.

So on that, I do want to ask you as well, authors love to use tools. Now, you're working with a lot of freelancers. You're working with different publishers. You use different tools. One of the big discussions right now for authors is AI. So I wondered—

What AI tools are you using as part of your business?

Rachel: I use ChatGPT to help with when I'm coming up with ideas for books and when I'm brainstorming. So the first book in my Petra McBride series, the one that's set in Paris, I had an idea which was around artworks in the Louvre.

So I needed to find artworks with particular themes, and I needed to expand on those themes and think about how those might relate to characters. So I spent a day just on my phone with Chat, just throwing ideas back and forth, and getting it to identify artworks in the Louvre that might fit with this idea.

Then getting it to tell me about areas of Paris that exemplified the kind of people who fit with the themes of these artworks. Then once I'd done that, I sort of shortlisted and came up with a final list of the artworks that I want to use in the book.

So what I then got ChatGPT to do was give me a walking route around the Louvre which will take me to all of those artworks in the most efficient way possible. So that when I go there on my research trip, I don't have to wander around the Louvre for hours trying to find all these places.

Also, I wanted it to find artworks that would be near the Mona Lisa, for example, but that's not the Mona Lisa. So nobody's looking at this other artwork, and that kind of thing. I got it to identify what they were near and what else would be going on in that part of the building.

So it's really useful for that kind of thing, so I use it at that point. Also, when I've got a whole load of ideas for a book and I'm trying to pull them all together into a coherent structure, I'll put what I've got into ChatGPT and get it to help me shuffle all the parts together and put them into a coherent structure.

I do a lot of the start of my location research often on ChatGPT. So I'm currently writing a book set on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Before I went there, I spent a lot of time on ChatGPT. It's based around archeology, this book, researching archeological sites, the history of the island and so forth.

Then getting it to give me sources because sometimes it does make things up. You have to be aware of that. So getting it to give me links and sources, and then delving into those, and then finding places I could visit.

I also use Novelcrafter. So I use Novelcrafter with Chat and with Claude to help me with editing. I'll put a first draft through a pass of a fine tune that I've created in Novelcrafter before I then do the second draft. So it cleans it up for me.

I've developed a fine tune that is based on my own writing, where I fed that into ChatGPT. I'll put my first draft in and get it to run that fine tune, so it just tidies up all the messy bits before I do the second draft.

I find also ChatGPT really helpful because I do a lot of dictation.

I'll often dictate a first draft, or I dictate my newsletter quite a lot. So I'll do my newsletter when I'm sitting in my car waiting to pick my son up from college or something, and I dictate it.

I use Otter.ai to dictate because I find that Otter is really good for the accuracy of picking up the right words, but it doesn't add punctuation. It doesn't add speech or anything. It adds punctuation as if you're in a meeting, and assumes that you're different speakers, instead of adding dialogue.

ChatGPT, when you give it something in Otter, it's really good at working out what's actually going on in terms of what's dialogue and what's not, and adding the paragraph breaks in the right place, and punctuation. So I do that as well, and that speeds things up, both with fiction and with the newsletter.

I'm constantly looking for new ways to use it and for it to help me be more efficient and have access to more information.

Joanna: I love that. I do think those of us, like you and I, we're pretty heavy on our research, and we use places. Like you say, if you use places and art, I also have a lot of art history in my books, and archeology and all of that. It does just really help to have a creative collaborator to help you.

I often will do exactly the same as you. I was thinking listening to you, and this is the point with AI to me as well, you are leveraging a tool to make more Rachel. Like Rachel more Rachel, for you to put more stuff out into the world.

You're also working with other humans who are helping you put more Rachel out into the world. I've also been wondering about how many issues people have with AI. I wonder, partly, if it's to do with creative confidence.

You are a confident writer. You've written millions of words at this point, as have I. Your tone of voice, my tone of voice around AI, it has no emotion. Or the only emotion it has is happy and positive. Like this is a great tool, this is really helpful to me, and I can do more with this.

I guess how I'm thinking about this is we're confident that what we produce is our work. Also, you came out of technical writing, and I was an IT consultant.

Do you think our technical experience plays into confidence around AI?

Rachel: I think so. I think the fact that I worked in IT before means that my default position with any new tech is to want to explore it and see what it can do for me, rather than to be scared of it.

I also believe very strongly that AI in itself is not good or bad. It is just a tool, and if good or bad things are done with it, that is because of the people who are doing those things. So if people use AI unethically, that's not the fault of the AI. That's the fault of the way that those people are either using or configuring the AI.

You talk a lot about doubling down on being human. Obviously, I'm using AI so it's not the full extent of my creative process, by any means. I'm adding on. I would never release something that had just been written by AI. I always work on it as well.

I also don't release books that have just been worked on by one of my co-authors. I work on them as well because I'm adding that Rachel. I mean, I actually call it Rachelifying.

Also, I've been doing a lot more video.

So it's that thing of being visibly human and being yourself. So, interestingly, I've been using TikTok, but I hardly ever put videos out on TikTok, but I use TikTok as a video editor. TikTok's editing tools are really good, and you don't have to pay for them.

If you download the video that you've created before you publish it, you can download it without any TikTok watermarks on it, and then I'll use it on Instagram or my newsletter or whatever. So I've been doing quite a lot of video, like little snippets of me.

A thing that's becoming quite a part of my brand is me walking along a beach somewhere, talking about what the weather's doing, and where I'm going today to research the next book. Also, where I'm going to dump a body.

If you ask my readers, what does Rachel do? It would be she finds a beauty spot, and she dumps a body in it.

I always do videos from my crime scenes, and those go out on social media on publication day.

It's me, standing in the crime scene, telling people, “Right, this is where this is going to happen. This is where the tents are going to go.” Forensics and all that sort of stuff. It just brings it to life for readers, and I think makes them feel part of that world that I'm creating as well.

Joanna: I love that. I keep thinking, yes, I must do more video, and then I just never do. I was looking at some of yours because they're on your Shopify store as well on your book pages, and I really think that is great.

I mean, it kept me on your Shopify store page to watch a video, which gives all the signals to the algorithms or whatever. So I think, actually, it's a really strong thing to do that. So I urge people to go and have a look at one of your videos.

As much as I think you're amazing, I mean, it's not like they're amazing professional videos. They're pretty human.

Rachel: That's part of the brand is. So, for example, I recently bought a gimbal, which is a stick thing that you put your phone on and video yourself, and it supposedly self-levels and follows you as you move around. Sometimes it goes wrong, and sometimes I don't put my phone in it properly, and the balance goes off, and it just goes a bit weird.

Instead of thinking, oh, I need to edit that out, I'll just laugh about it and say, “Oh, it's doing it again. I've got to work out this gimbal,” and that just becomes part of what readers enjoy, that you're not trying to create this really polished thing.

I do a lot of video where I'm somewhere where it's windy, and I'm yelling to try and be heard. I have got little lavalier mics with the little fluffy thing on to stop the wind noise. I'm sure there's a technical term for it.

Joanna: It's called the dead cat.

Rachel: The dead cat, that's it. Oh goodness.

Even so, when you're standing on top of a mountain in Scotland filming a video of a crime scene, there's going to be wind noise, and I'm sort of yelling into the camera.

Sometimes I'll end up just doing a voiceover afterwards, but people quite enjoy that. They find it quite funny that I'm about to get blown into the sea somewhere or something like that. So, yes, I think that lack of professionalism.

I would say to people, if you're planning on making video, don't worry at all about it being polished. Just record yourself in a natural way, as if you would if you were sending a video update to one of your friends or family or something like that. Just make it you.

Joanna: Well, I'm excited to talk to you again in like two and a half years. So it's been two and a half years since we last spoke, and in two and a half years, it'll be very interesting to see where you are then because your trajectory is looking pretty good.

Tell people where they can find you, and your books, and everything you do online.

Rachel: Yes, they can find everything at RachelMclean.com, which is where those videos are. All my books are available for sale there as well, and my newsletter.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Rachel. That was great.

Rachel: Thank you.

Takeaways

• Rachel MacLean has sold over two million copies of her books.
• She has scaled her business by hiring a team of freelancers.
• Engaging with readers is a top priority for Rachel.
• Collaboration with co-authors enhances creativity and productivity.
• Rachel enjoys the flexibility of managing her own team.
• Ambition drives Rachel, but lifestyle is also a key motivation.
• Understanding reader preferences is crucial for success.
• Location plays a significant role in her crime fiction.
• DCI Leslie Clark is a beloved character among readers.
• Rachel plans to expand Ackroyd Publishing with more authors. Hera focuses on mainstream fiction by diverse authors.
• Being recognized as a top author is a significant achievement.
• Reader engagement is crucial for an author's success.
• Transitioning readers from ebooks to physical books is a process.
• Audiobooks have been a successful avenue for reaching readers.
• Innovative marketing strategies can enhance reader engagement.
• AI tools can assist in brainstorming and structuring ideas.
• Authenticity in branding helps connect with readers.
• Using technology creatively can enhance the writing process.
• Embracing new tools can lead to greater efficiency in writing.

The post Scaling An Author Business With Rachel McLean first appeared on The Creative Penn.

The Creative Penn Podcast just hit 10 million downloads as reported by my audio host, Blubrry!

The podcast is also the main content on my YouTube channel @thecreativepenn, which has had over 3.9 million views, so the total could be closer to 14m. I'm pretty happy with that, so thanks for listening!

Here are some fun stats, and then I share 7 lessons learned that are also applicable for authors and other creatives.

• Start where you are and improve your craft, tools, and technology over time
• Focus on value for the listeners (or readers)
• Everyone starts with no audience, no email list — and no clue!
• It's all about the relationships you build along the way
• People want to know about you. Decide on your boundaries — before you're forced to.
• Podcasting (or being an author) can be a viable business — if you design it that way.
• You will only sustain what is ‘worth it' to you over the long term. Persistence and time in the market make a big difference.

You can find The Creative Penn Podcast on your favourite podcast app, or the backlist and links are here.

The Creative Penn Podcast Stats

My first episode went out on 15 March 2009, and there are now 775 episodes of the podcast. Links to all at TheCreativePenn.com/podcast.

The show has been downloaded in 229 countries with the top three countries being the USA (61%), UK (12%), and Australia (7%), and the most surprising being 2 downloads from Antarctica!

The four most downloaded episodes through Blubrry are as follows:

• Writing fiction and improving your fiction book description with Michaelbrent Collings (28,264 downloads)
• How to use mystery to hook your readers with Jonah Lehrer (28,215)
• Tips for indie author success and 20BooksTo50K with Craig Martelle (28,199)
• Author mindset: Strengths for writers with Becca Syme (27,786)

The four most watched/listened to on YouTube are quite different:

• Improve your dialogue with James Scott Bell (75,200)
• How to sell a million books with CJ Lyons (59,689)
• How to write a novel with the snowflake method with Randy Ingermanson (54,209)
• Story Engineering with Larry Brooks (52,520)

Why are these numbers so different? An audio podcast generally gets a relatively stable number of people listening every week, so there is less variability in listening numbers. YouTube is based on search and algorithms, so some videos get a LOT of views and others get almost nothing.

7 Lessons Learned From Over 10 Million Podcast Episode Downloads

(1) Start where you are and improve your craft, tools, and technology over time

You don't need to know everything in advance in order to write a book, or publish, or start a podcast. Just get started and learn and adapt along the way.

I recorded my first podcast interview in March 2009 over a landline, which I put on speakerphone, next to which I placed a handheld digital audio recorder.

I didn't really know what I was doing, but despite my nerves, I was still able to interview a breakout self-published author in the Australian book scene, Rachael Bermingham. (I lived in Brisbane, Australia at the time.)

I've always done extensive research on my guests and provided questions in advance, but my interview skills have definitely improved since then — both as a host and a guest. Everything gets better with practice, and that includes your writing, too!

My tools have also changed. My recording went from a phone to Skype to Zoom and now Riverside.fm, and I've upgraded my microphone (and pop filter) several times.

I used to just record in any room with the accompanying echo noises Later, I moved into a padded cupboard, and now I have a home audio booth where I record my solo episodes, weekly introduction, and my audiobooks.

My editing tools went from Audacity to Amadeus Pro, and I now use Descript.com to edit the main audio before mastering with Amadeus Pro and Auphonic.

I still use the same WordPress plugin, Blubrry, which is one of the oldest and most reputable independent podcast hosts. I have always paid for hosting the feed, first on AWS and then on Blubrry itself. As ever, I really love my independence!

If you're not paying for a product, then question how that company is making money. Is your content actually the product? (as is the case for most social media platforms).

(2) Focus on value for the listeners (or readers)

If you try to write a book in a market you don't read, you will likely get it wrong and readers won't resonate with the content or buy more from you.

If you start a podcast without an understanding of what the audience want, then you will fail in a similar way. But you can avoid this by BEING the audience you seek to connect with.

When I started The Creative Penn Podcast in 2009, I had self-published a couple of non-fiction books, and I'd learned so much from those initial failures that I wanted to share what I'd learned.

I was also really lonely and I didn't have any author friends or a community. I wanted a way to virtually meet and talk to other authors so I could learn from those ahead of me on the path— and maybe make some friends.

Over the years since, I've continued to interview people who I want to talk to and learn from as well as share my own lessons learned from the author journey.

I never designed a podcast for a target market. I didn't have to, because I was that market. It's the same with my books. I don't write to market. I just write books about what I learn (non-fiction), or stories I would want to read (fiction).

The content of the podcast has changed over time, and these days, I focus much more on the business of being an author as well as the writing craft.

But I'm still an author and a podcaster, and I'm still learning things, so I am still my own audience and the downloads demonstrate the content is clearly still of value, because I am still getting downloads of the show, and still selling books.

(3) Everyone starts with no audience, no email list — and no clue!

Back in 2009, podcasting wasn't popular, and it didn't really move into the mainstream until the true crime podcast Serial took off in 2014.

Between 2009 and 2014, it often felt like I was howling into the wind, as tumbleweed rolled past in the empty desert. Those were also the years when self-publishing was considered ‘vanity press' and when authors who went indie were generally shunned and considered to be desperate wannabes instead of smart business people.

Thankfully, that has mostly changed, and the fights about indie vs trad have dissipated, to be replaced by fights about AI and whatever is the latest drama in Authorlandia!

From 2014, my traffic started to take off and grew for a few years before leveling off and has remained pretty steady over the last 5+ years. Episodes now get between 8000 – 20,000 downloads, depending on the topic.

But like everyone, I started with no audience, no readers, no listeners, no books, no income from my creative work. I just worked steadily for years, producing content in different ways.

Slowly, people discovered the show and my books, mainly through word of mouth and SEO (search engine optimisation) since I have never advertised the podcast.

So take heart if you are just getting started. Create, put your content out there, in whatever medium you choose, and over time, you will attract an audience.

(4) It's all about the relationships you build along the way

The Creative Penn Podcast really has changed my life in so many ways, and the relationships I've built are perhaps the most important part.

It helped me find other indie authors who were doing what I wanted to do, and I was able to meet many of them online and at conferences. Some of those initial conversations on the show turned into IRL friendships, and others turned into business opportunities and collaborations.

There's also the relationships with you, the listeners of the show, even if I don't know all of your names.

Audio is such a personal and intimate medium, and long-form audio even more so. You know so much about me — more than my family sometimes! — and when we meet in person, or you email with your thoughts, I know there is more of a connection because you listen to the show.

Thank you for making me part of your weekly listening time!

As an author, you need other writers for a sustainable long-term career. You need people who understand the challenges of the creative life. You need a community, even if you're an introvert, happy working on your own most of the time.

You don't need a podcast for this. You can find people through online groups, going to conferences, and social media.

But then take it a step further. We are humans, we need other people!

If you resonate with someone, connect with them for a coffee offline, or have a private zoom call. This is ‘friend dating' and it's something you'll need to do multiple times over your career as you change, your friends change, and maybe you change locations and life circumstances.

(Obviously, this needs to be appropriate to your life and family situation, as well as your stage on the author journey.)

(5) People want to know about you. Decide on your boundaries — before you're forced to.

For the first few years of the podcast, I didn't do an introduction. I just jumped straight into the interview. After all, no one wanted to know about me or my life — but it turned out they did!

A listener emailed and suggested I do an introduction as a way for people to get to know me as well as my guests, and years later, I know many of you come for the introduction and might not stay for the interview.

I've changed it up over the years adding the different sections around news and AI updates as well as my personal journey, but it's a core part of my show now.

As a listener to other podcasts, I also understand that listeners come back each week for the host and their take on whatever the topic is. Guests may borrow part of that attention and may have book sales or a new fan based on the episode, but listeners return again and again to the same show for the host.

To foster this kind of connection, whether it's as a podcast host or as an author, you have to double down on being human. You have to share personal things, whether that's the inspiration for your books and stories, or photos from your life, which you can put in your email newsletter, and/or social media.

You need to do this, but you get to set your boundaries. For example, I talk about my husband Jonathan sometimes, but we don't share a last name and he has his own career, so I respect his privacy and don't share our personal photos. However, our cats, Cashew and Noisette, and photos from my research trips are all over social media!

Some authors talk about their kids but give them code-names and don't share pictures for privacy reasons. Some authors with pseudonyms just share pictures from their garden or things they like, giving an insight into them as a person without revealing identifying details.

You have to decide on your boundaries, but do it early, when no one knows who you are. Because if a book takes off or you go viral on social media, or something else happens to bring you attention, you want to have privacy in place to protect yourself.

(6) Podcasting (or being an author) can be a viable business — if you design it that way.

When I decided to become a full-time author, I always intended it to be a viable business. I was not going to leave my six-figure consulting job to be a poor author in a garret, so I planned my creative business — and then took action towards that goal. [More on this in Your Author Business Plan.]

I started writing seriously in 2006, left my job in 2011, and in 2015, I made six figures, and then the following year, multi-six-figures, which I have sustained ever since across multiple streams of income. Check out my timeline for more details.

The podcast was originally designed as part of that business plan as a marketing channel to being people to my books and courses, which at the time were all non-fiction based.

Podcasting works very well for marketing non-fiction books, and guesting on shows is a great way to reach readers, even if you don't want to start a show yourself.

The early years of The Creative Penn Podcast did achieve the goal of marketing, but around 2015, the hosting costs were getting expensive, and it was taking more time as I moved from ad hoc to a weekly show.

Amanda Palmer's book, The Art of Asking came out in 2014, which focused on building genuine connections with her audience and personal stories about crowdfunding and subscriptions. It talks about embracing the discomfort of asking, and highlights how openness can foster deeper relationships and support creativity.

Amanda is VERY open, down to doing nude pics and letting her fans write on her body — not really my style! I'm also (very) British and we are not good at the hard sell, and never want to sound ‘desperate,' so I struggled with knowing how I could ask for money for the show after years of it being free.

That year, I talked to Jim Kukral about aspects of selling direct through our own stores as well as crowdfunding. The interview is just as current now as it was back then, especially as it seems indie authors are finally embracing the direct model.

Here's a (lightly edited) clip from the interview with Jim Kukral where I talk about the struggle of asking for support:

Jim: The whole concept of patrons goes back thousands of years. Michelangelo had a patron, right? Patrons are a very important part of the artist/storytelling community, and we've gotten away from it, and we've gotten into this transaction based hard sticker price world with e-commerce, right?

I guess the whole entire concept of patronage is letting people support you. It doesn't have to be one wealthy patron who gave you a stipend to do your art for the next 30 years. You could have a thousand people, or fifty people each giving you a little bit of money that can help support you. And I believe that every artist and content creator should be trying this 'cause it's an amazingly powerful movement.

You need to use words like support. Don't ask for handouts. Say it's my content. I'm giving it to you. If you would like to support me and the work that I do, then you can go here.

It's a little psychological switch in a person's head when they hear, ‘you can support me,' as opposed to ‘you can donate to me.' You have so many fans who love to listen to the podcast. Would 2000 people give you $1 every time you do a podcast?

Jo: And that's the thing, because I've now got transcripts and there's the time it takes. There is an amount I would want to make just to cover costs, let alone anything else. But I have been thinking about this — let's talk about the psychology of asking. I'm very British. I want to talk about money, but it is a very difficult thing for many people to even be thinking about these things.

Jim: This is a tough thing, because we've been told and taught that it's like begging, right?

Jo: I don't wanna do that!

Jim: Yeah, but you have to change your mindset, right?

Jo: It's interesting because I just wrote down like when I thought, why am I having problem? The problem I have is being independent. And that's so crazy because that's what we're talking about.

I mean, like even my mum, I would never even ask my mum for money. I had a job at 13 and earned the money that I needed to do to for stuff. And I've always felt that way but what you're saying is actually is to be independent, we need to develop that kind of trust.

I mean, this is like an emotional risk though, isn't it? What if I put myself out there and nobody catches me and I hit the floor?

Jim: I think it's going to depend on who your true fans are and if you've really connected with them or not. This will not work for people who create content that's not amazing.

People are fans of things that really entertain them or solve their problems. So if you're not creating something amazing, this will never work for anyone which is why it's the level playing field, only the people who really are producing something that people want are going to be the ones who are gonna be able to do this.”

Click here for the whole interview with Jim on selling direct. Jim is a professional speaker and non-fiction self-help author and used to co-host the Sell More Books Show with Bryan Cohen. You can still find him at JimKukral.com]

Amanda's book and the discussion with Jim helped me reframe the podcast.

I decided it needed to produce income as well as be a marketing channel in order to make it worth continuing.

In 2015, I added corporate sponsor ad reads with the earliest being Kobo Writing Life, Draft2Digital, and ProWritingAid, still sponsors of the show, and companies I use personally and am more than happy to recommend. I later expanded to add Ingram Spark, FindawayVoices, and also Publisher Rocket, and Written Word Media.

I've been approached by companies who offer more money in terms of sponsorship, but who aren't a good fit for the show, and it's important to me that I only advertise those companies I continue to use and recommend.

THANKS to my corporate sponsors — you are fantastic!

Also in 2015, I started my subscription at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn and this started as a way for listeners to support the show and get an extra solo episode a month where I answered Patron questions.

The top tier of Patrons also get my non-fiction ebooks as part of the subscription. I also occasionally did extra things but the main focus was supporting the show.

At the end of 2023, as part of my 15 year pivot, I changed the Patreon into almost a separate Community where I now share extra weekly content, mainly on using various AI tools, as well as writing craft and author business audio and videos. I've also started doing live Office Hours and I still do the monthly Q&A audio.

This has dramatically accelerated growth and I now have over 1200 paid Patrons, some of whom have said they would stick around in that Community even if I ended the podcast (don't worry, that's not happening at the moment!)

THANK YOU, Patrons! You are amazing! Come and join us at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn where you can get everything for less than a coffee a month, or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous.

(7) You will only sustain what is ‘worth it' to you over the long term. Persistence and time in the market make a big difference.

I'm not the only podcaster in the indie author community, but I'm pretty sure I'm the longest running at this point!

Since I started my show in March 2009, there have been many other podcasts that have started and ended — and the same is true of the author community.

There have been authors with breakout successes who disappeared as fast as they arrived. Others stuck around for years, but eventually faded away. There are some who are still here, many who started before me, some who came after me, who have stuck it out through the good times and the bad.

There are many good reasons people end a podcast or decide being an author is not for them. But there is only one reason to keep doing either.

It has to be worth it.

The definition of ‘worth it' differs for everyone, but for me, there are a couple of reasons I continue to host The Creative Penn Podcast.

(a) Patrons and listeners tell me it is still useful and — even though I am an ‘older' voice in the industry now — I still have something to contribute to the conversation, especially in the era of generative AI.

Perhaps my longevity even gives me some authority because I've seen so much drama rise and fall over the years, and I know ‘this too shall pass.'

(b) I'm also still learning, and my #1 Clifton Strengths is Learner! Every conversation I have that makes me think differently, or helps my craft or business, is worth it, and to be able to help others by recording the conversation is an added bonus!

(c) It makes great money! With corporate sponsors and the Patreon, in addition to affiliate links and marketing my books and other things, The Creative Penn Podcast is a significant business on its own. I love having multiple streams of income, so it's worth it financially to continue.

Some people might say that ‘loving' something is enough. That might carry you through for a while, but it's not sustainable for the long term.

I loved my Books and Travel Podcast and happily did that for a few years. The evergreen episodes are all still on the feed and the transcripts are on my blog.

But as much as I loved the conversations and connection, I could not figure out a decent business model for it, and I learned enough about the travel writing industry to see that it was not a good fit for me.

There's nothing wrong with ending a show, and there's nothing wrong with deciding you don't want to keep pushing in an author career either.

Everyone changes over time, and what is ‘worth it' for you at one book or the first 20 episodes of a podcast will be quite different by book 10, or a podcast you are still trying to do years later without enough reward.

But if you do stay the course, your time in the market becomes an almost unstoppable force on its own. With time and persistence and continuous creation over years, you gather readers and listeners and income streams, and together, they snowball into something bigger than you ever thought they might be.

I'm not promising I will be here for 20 million downloads — who knows how long that will take! — but for now, The Creative Penn Podcast continues on, Creatives, and I hope you will keep listening as take another step forward on the author journey.

Let me know your thoughts or any questions in the comments. Thanks for listening!

The post 7 Lessons Learned From Over 10 Million Downloads Of The Creative Penn Podcast first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Can you be successful as an author across different genres and different pen names? How do traditional publishing and going indie compare? How can you diversify into multiple streams of income as an author? With Emily E.K. Murdoch.

In the intro, Planning for retirement [Self-Publishing Advice]; my list of money books; Red flags in serialised (and other) fiction contracts [Self-Published Advice]; The Author's Guild partners with Created by Humans for AI licensing; Nobel Prizes for AI-related research [The Economist]; Last chance for Blood Vintage, and where did the idea come from?; plus, what I'm working on next.

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Emily E K Murdoch is the USA Today bestselling author of over 100 historical romances across medieval, western and regency, and mixed between steamy and sweet. She's also the author of nonfiction history book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been under Emily Murdoch Perkins.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Discovery writing vs outlining — how it affects your drafting and editing speed
• How to research in-person and online
• Securing a nonfiction traditional publishing deal
• Maintaining creative autonomy with a traditional publishing contract
• Opportunities that arise from being traditionally published
• Writing under different names for different genres
• Tips for pitching blurbs for your book
• How traditional publishers help with PR
• Diversifying your author business and creating multiple streams of income

You can find Emily at EmilyEKMurdoch.com.

Transcript of Interview with Emily E K Murdoch

Joanna: Emily E K Murdoch is the USA Today bestselling author of over 100 historical romances across medieval, western and regency, and mixed between steamy and sweet. She's also the author of nonfiction history book Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been under Emily Murdoch Perkins. So welcome to the show, Emily.

Emily: Thank you so much for having me. It's a real joy to be here.

Joanna: Oh, yes. There's so much to talk about, but first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Emily: Well, I am one of those authors who very much grew up knowing that I wanted to be a writer. It's a family legend that my end of year report at five years old includes the phrase, “Emily keeps telling us she's going to be an author.”

So I very much started strong, but it was one of those things that was always going to be in the future. I was chatting about my dreams, about wanting to be an author, wanting to write, with a boyfriend as we were coming up to university graduation.

I said, “Look, I will be an author one day. It's absolutely going to happen.” You know, with all the confidence of a 21 year old. “But, obviously that is something I'll do when I'm older. I'll have to do a proper job first. So maybe in my 40s, 50s, 60s, when I've had a career, that's what I'll do.”

He looked at me and was like, “I don't understand why you've got to wait. I don't see why you can't write a book right now.” And reader, I married him! I also published for the first time two years later.

I was able to quit my job and “retire” into full time creativity before I turned 30.

Joanna: Ooh. Everyone's like, okay, okay. So first up, excellent, that you married such a supportive person. I know some people listening will be like, oh my goodness. They're jealous because I think that's quite rare for someone to say that. Let's get into this hundred books. Give us an idea how many years ago that was and how you then progressed.

Emily: My first book came out in 2013, so that's 11 years ago. It was written and finished the year before then. I thought, I'll be smart about this. I'll take it to a publisher who really understands historical romance, which was the novel. So I actually submitted to Harlequin, which is part of HarperCollins.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't understand how slow traditional publishing was. I waited six months for a reply, which to me, was an age. Eventually I got tired, and I withdrew it, and I took it elsewhere. I do wonder sometimes what might have been if I'd stuck it out.

I do actually now publish, ironically, with Harlequin HarperCollins. So I've kind of come full circle in that way. So, yes, 11 years. 11 years, and I went full time after eight. So it was very much an overnight success with an eight year slow burn.

Joanna: Tell us how you're writing so fast.

I feel like a lot of romance authors—the books are shorter, aren't they? So that is one aspect. Tell us about that.

Emily: Yes and no. Some of my historical romances are novellas. They're 30,000 to 40,000 words, so they are on the shorter end. One of my historical romance series is at least over 100,000 – 110,000 per book. So there's a real spread in terms of how long I write.

There are certain things you can teach about being a fast author. It's something that I do teach, and I do mentor and advise other authors on, but there is something I think innate. I don't want people to ever feel like they should be forcing themselves to write faster.

Having said that, I write 10,000 words a day, every working day. So that enables me to build up quite a backlog. It means that I can rapid release, whatever that looks like for you. Some of my rapid releases have been a book every three months. I've done a book every month.

I did a series once which was 12 Christmas novellas based on the 12 Days of Christmas song, and I released a novella a week for 12 weeks. October, November, December, the lead up to Christmas one year. So there's a real range there.

Joanna: I think this is so interesting because when you first said to your now husband, “I'll write it one day,” he said, “do it now,” you didn't just write one book. I feel like that's the other part of it—

If somebody wants to be a writer, it isn't just one book.

Did you meet other people along the way who were like, how are you doing this? Like, shouldn't you just write one book for 10 years?

Emily: There are certainly people who maybe are new to publishing, or don't know publishing at all, and have this kind of Patrick Rothfuss or George R R Martin, “oh, it takes a decade to write a good book” mindset, and that's true sometimes.

Sometimes really great books come out of a decade of working, and reworking, and editing, and putting it down and picking it up again.

Really good books can also be written really fast. That has been a challenge for me in my craft because I can write very fast, and then I hate editing. So it's very easy for me to be tempted to go, well, it's written. I mean, it's written, my editor can worry about fixing it.

Actually, over the last, I would say five years, I've really tried to work on my editing myself, my own words, because actually there is that 10%, 20%, 30% improvement that I can bring before it even goes to another set of eyes.

Actually, that's when things slow down for me. The writing itself is very fast, but the editing is where that refinement and that polishing comes, as much as I loathe it. I'm quite open about the fact that I really struggle. It's just self-criticism, which is not something many creators enjoy.

Joanna: That's so interesting. I think there's people who love first draft like you, and people who love editing, like me. I feel like my first draft is not fun. I love the research, I love the ideas, I love kind of noodling around. Then—

I guess because I'm a discovery writer, I find it quite difficult to do the first draft. Then I love, love editing.

I feel like my self-edit is where a lot of the work is done. So I think that there are two types of people in that kind of writing.

Emily: I completely agree. I do wonder if we mapped plotters versus pantsers across people who love first drafts or people who love edits, I think there'll be a strong correlation.

I love plotting. I'm a deep plotter. I plot very heavily before I write. So when I write, I write very fast, partly because I know exactly where I'm going. I even have dialogue snippets, descriptions, every scene is outlined. All I'm doing is following the pegs in a line along a road, and I know exactly where I'm going.

So when it comes to edits, it feels like I'm second guessing all the previous work I've put in. I've got lots and lots of author friends who, like yourself, are discovery writers. They're pantsing.

For them, the edits are where they spot all the clues that their subconscious laid down for them that they didn't notice at the time. So that is really joyful for them. I do wonder if there's a correlation there.

Joanna: I think you're probably right. I also think that people who do plot are more consistent with the 10,000 words a day, or whatever, because you know what you're going to write.

Whereas some days I might write—well, I don't ever really write that much. Some days I'll sit down and I find I kind of have a feeling for this scene, it might happen, and then some days it won't. So for people listening, it really doesn't matter how your process works. With the finished book, you wouldn't be able to tell how someone constructed it, basically.

I do just want to ask on your research. I love research, and one of the things that “slows me down” is the amount of research I do. So, for example, Spear of Destiny, I just had to go to Austria and Germany. I have to do these research trips because that's the only way I can write.

You're a medieval historian with degrees in history and English, as well as medieval studies. You've done lots of cool stuff, especially for someone like me who geeks out on ancient manuscripts and Gothic cathedrals.

Tell us a bit more about some of the interesting research you've done and how you weave that into your fiction.

Emily: I have to say up front, I have the benefit of being born and raised in Canterbury, which has a fantastic cathedral. It's a Roman-founded medieval city. It's got walls, it's got a river going through it, a cathedral in the middle.

I then went to York and did both of my degrees, which is a Roman-based, medieval, walled, river going through it, minster in the middle. Now I've lived near Bath for the last five years, which, again, is Roman.

I have a type in terms of where I like to live, and being British does help. I know that sounds very flippant. I've got lots and lots of American friends, lots of Australian friends who are authors, who are very envious of my ability to just hop on a train and be in the place that I want to write about.

In a very dull way, and I think this might give hope to more of our international listeners, so much is digitized now. Although I do go to somewhere and kind of absorb the atmosphere, most of what I do is digital records trawling when I'm looking for something in particular.

It is not nearly as exciting as saying, “Well, I'm just going to have to go to the British Library for a week. Oh no,” but actually it is a lot more productive. It means I can usually check things within an hour or two, rather than waiting for a week in my calendar where I can head off to London.

Joanna: You write historical fiction. I mean—

How much are you doing research before writing?

Emily: This is going to sound terrible, and I want everyone to take this with a huge grain of salt, now, not very much because I'm like 70, 80, 90 books in.

When you're writing in the same time period over and over and over and over again, when you've already studied history at University for four years, when you absorb yourself in that time period through my casual reading. I'm the sort of person that relaxes by reading academic texts or popular history.

I do find that I don't end up needing to do a huge amount of research now. Now, 10 years ago, very different story. There was a lot of, to be honest, starting in Wikipedia. I know there's going to be a lot of people flinching at that. It is not what it was 20 years ago.

Actually, the references and the citations at the bottom are where you want to go. Ignore most of the actual article. If you find something that you want to know a lot about, there will be a list of sources, primary sources, secondary sources, at the bottom, go there.

Then befriend your local librarian. If you're close to a university, befriend those librarians because they have resources beyond what I could have imagined. For example, at Bristol University Library I got to handle primary sources. It was just amazing. So I don't know if that answers your question.

Joanna: I think it does. Just that walking into a library, I wrote quite a lot in the London Library. I call it the serendipity of the stacks, when you actually are in a physical library, as opposed to digitally, because you stumble across things that you may never have found otherwise.

I also think now, just in terms of online research, I've been using Perplexity a lot. So it's perplexity.ai, and it's what a lot of researchers now use instead of Google and other sources because it uses the ChatGPT, the best one. Then it also does citations. So it's really, really good.

There's a research tip for everyone. Try Perplexity.ai

It does have a free tier. So that's actually what I've been using now. I use that for lots of things.

Emily: As you well know, Joanna, there is a wide spread of people's comfort with AI in general. I think hearing about something that cites where the information is coming from, I think is going to put a lot of fears to rest for people who want to use that sort of tool. That would always worry me, that I would be using something that I would be not knowing where it came from.

Joanna: Yes, it's like Google powered by a lot of AI, so you can ask a lot more nuanced questions. I encourage people to give it a try. It's more like Google than anything else, basically. It's not a generative tool where you use it in any other way.

Let's get into your latest book. So I think we say here, we say Regina, right, but Americans say Regeena.

Emily: Regina. Regeena. I say both. Either is fine. I don't get worried about it.

Joanna: Okay, but the word means queen, and the subtitle is “The Queens Who Could Have Been,” which considers what queens England would have had if firstborn daughters, not firstborn sons, had inherited the throne.

This is nonfiction. Why write this book?

Emily: I've always wanted to write nonfiction. It was one of the things when I realized that actually I was in a place where I could write full time that I wanted to add to my bow. Mostly because I am that person who corners someone at a party and is like, “But honestly, Henry II, so underrated, and here's 14 reasons why.”

I'm that person that wants to kind of dive into these stories and tell them. There's so much of history that we don't know, or isn't popular, or isn't taught. You can't teach everything in a school curriculum. There simply isn't time.

So I realized quite quickly on going full time that my nonfiction niche is that untold stories through history. I find the British Monarchy fascinating. It's almost fantasy. You have this chosen one, the idea that for someone, a child, their life is mapped out for them as the heir to the throne.

When Elizabeth II died, and Charles immediately came to the throne, I kept watching Princess Anne on screen, on the TV, being involved in all of these memorials and celebrations of her mother's life.

I thought, gosh, her life didn't have that blueprint, that purpose, that direction, but she has still grown up with all of the same restrictions. I started to wonder, what sort of women would we have had on the throne if we didn't have Richard III or Henry VIII, if we had women inheriting and not men?

All these women's stories that I don't know, and I'm a public historian who's done four years of university and has continued keeping history as part of my life. It was challenging, I will be honest, trying to research and understand who these women were, because for many of them, we don't have anything.

In the early chapters, I have to say to the reader, I don't have birth dates, death dates, marriage dates. I don't really have any evidence of what they did, where they went, or who they spoke to. There is enough sprinkled through the records that we might not expect. We'll see lists of Christmas gifts or bills for jewelry.

I think one of the challenges when I came to writing the book itself was making the decision, if there isn't enough information about the woman herself, but we know loads about the men in her life, how do we tell that story?

A story about a woman, but unfortunately, through the eyes of the men who knew her. It's been completely different to fiction. With fiction, I can get away with quite a lot, even within historical romance, but writing nonfiction has been completely different.

Joanna: Yes, very different process. I imagine that your fiction abilities helped because you've written romances with female perspectives for so long around different historical periods.

You have put your mind in the mind of a woman of the period.

So I would expect that you are able to sort of cast your mind into this, and that you had a lot of knowledge about the time period. You just seem very well placed to write this.

Emily: Oh, well, thank you. It's very kind of you, Joanna. I think one of the joys about it is that I believe very much—you know, I don't have a PhD. I'm a public historian, I'm not an academic historian.

I'm not undergoing fresh new research. I'm finding the tales that academics have already found, but have stayed within a very niche, small subset of academics. I'm kind of bringing those out for people to hear about.

There is an opportunity in the book to say, well, I don't actually know, but based on context, based on my research, based on what people think, this is what could have been. That's the joy of this speculative element. I'm quite open. I end each section by saying, okay, so now we know this factual information about this princess, let's speculate. What do we think she would have been like as a queen?

Having that openness in the book of like, well, we don't know everything. It's okay not to look perfect or have all the answers. It's okay to say we don't know these things, so let's guess. There's a joy in that for me as an author, and I'm hoping that readers will find that as well.

Joanna: Yes, and in that way, it being speculative, and you're publishing this with a traditional publisher, The History Press. So it does seem like a slightly odd book, given that, as you say, you're essentially proposing what could have happened.

How did that deal with traditional publishing come about?

Especially as, I don't know, some of the views of romance authors might prevent a serious press from thinking of you that way.

Emily: So I have a word for the year every year to inspire myself and direct myself and build some momentum. The year that I sold this book on proposal, 2022, the word of the year was diversification.

Now I know, Joanna, that you may have heard of this! Regular listeners may be going, hmm, I sense some deja vu here. I think it was really important, and I knew that adding traditional publishing to my strings was important.

I've self-published. I've worked with independent presses. I'd offered editing services. I thought nonfiction and trad go very well together, and this might be the right time to pursue it.

I pitched a completely different nonfiction book idea to agents.

I was really fortunate to secure a wonderful agent at a very prestigious agency in London. In our first meeting, which I was very excited about over Zoom, she said, “I absolutely love your vision. This book will not be done in time. We've got to can your idea.”

So, for context, my idea was to do a history of coronations, of English and British coronations, in the lead up to Charles. I thought, we've got nine months, how long could it possibly take? As a self-published person, who if I decide to put up a manuscript, it's up within three days maximum.

I knew traditional publishing timelines were long, but I had no idea how long. So she said, “Look, I really believe in you as an author. What other ideas do you have?” The story for Regina was one of those.

So it came about in a bit of a backwards way. My agent was very good at explaining, look, because it's 80% history, 20% speculative, there are going to be presses and imprints that don't want to touch this.

Ironically, there's an imprint at Penguin who absolutely loved the idea, but said they'll never get this through sales. The editorial team loved it, but they were like, we know that sales won't touch this because it's not pure history, and that is what we're meant to do.

Thankfully, so far, I'm touching all the wood, the fact that I still write and proudly write and publish romance has never come up as a problem. I'm sure there may have been some snootiness behind the scenes of imprints who didn't offer on Regina, but it's their loss. Publishing is indebted to romance, not just because it is one of the most popular genres that people read.

Joanna: It pays the bills.

Emily: It's the most popular genre to pay everyone.

I read once, 80% of publishing is earning their money from romance.

So I mean, I think romance is fantastic, and that is a hill I will very much die on. I never hid that I wrote romance. I was very open about the pen name that I use for romance, and I never hid that I was going to continue writing it. I shared all the publication dates and all the commitments with my other publishers, Dragonblade, Harlequin, and HarperCollins.

I was very careful to remove any mention of exclusivity, of first refusal. I wanted to keep that freedom for myself.

Joanna: Right. So it ended up being a one book deal, did it?

Emily: It ended up being a one book deal, as per my request, because I don't want to be tied into something that I haven't tested myself. That can sound very flippant, and I'm sure if someone had offered me a five book nonfiction deal for millions of pounds, we would have had a conversation.

For me, my autonomy as a creative is what enables me to pay the bills and love doing what I'm doing.

I can't imagine anything worse than trying to write a book that I don't believe in or I'm not excited about.

Readers are not stupid. They're going to tell very quickly that this is something that has been churned out to fulfill a contract. You see that in the music industry. People have three great albums and then a fourth terrible one.

Everyone goes, well, this feels like it's been rushed out, and it's because they've got a four album contract, and they're desperate to get out of it. So they just put out whatever they have. I never wanted to feel like I was put in the position where I was desperate to get out of a contract.

Joanna: Then, obviously, you mentioned the speed of things. You said 2022, it's now towards the end of 2024 as we are recording this. So if people listening are like, I really want a traditional deal, I currently have a book on submission.

What are the pros and cons that you feel about the whole [traditional publishing] situation?

Emily: I think we have to differentiate fiction from nonfiction because as a general rule—and we are talking generalizations here, there will always be someone who does thing a bit different—but as a general rule, fiction in the traditional world, you write the book completely, and then you try to sell it.

So the sales process can be a bit shorter because they know exactly what they're buying into. The editorial process can be shorter because it's a refinement of an existing book.

For nonfiction, you sell on proposal.

So you write almost kind of a business case for the book. What's the market? What's the audience? Why should you be writing it? What do you bring to the table? An outline of the chapters in the book. Then a sample chapter, maybe two or three.

Then when you sell it, you then have to go away and write it. So that adds a huge element to the timeline because that could take you six months. It could take you a year.

I've seen some people who sign a nonfiction contract, and then five years later the book comes out because it took them two and a half years to write.

So I think a big con for tradition publishing in general, is if you need to see the fruit of your labor and you need to start earning money quickly, trad is maybe not for you, at least for now. There's nothing stopping you coming to it later.

I think a big positive for me is that it gives me access to spaces that I haven't had access to before as an independent. Part of that is snobbery. I had a feature published in The Daily Mirror as of recording a few days ago. They would never have even considered that if I wasn't attached to a traditional publishing house.

Unfortunately, that is just the truth. I don't like it, but that is the truth. They wouldn't have considered it. I will be in bricks and mortar all over the country. None of my romance books are in bricks and mortar across the country.

So it's those little things where you have to weigh up what you want to get out of it, which sounds very mercenary. I say to my publishers all the time — 

I am an artist. I will spend forever crafting the perfect book, but once it's done, it's a product, and I want to sell it and make both of us lots of money.

I'm not ashamed about that. There is a time for art and beauty and craft, and then there is a time to say, but can I pay my mortgage if I sell this book?

Joanna: No, that's exactly right. I do think the definition of success, what am I actually looking to achieve? Like you said, you're accessing a different audience. That's how I feel as well. It's just another group of people you might never reach as an indie.

I think it also gives you opportunities. Well, like you mentioned the media thing, but also just different things come up. I mean, you may end up now being a speaker at history conferences or something because you have a nonfiction book in that area.

Emily: Absolutely. This makes me sound far more exciting and dramatic than it is, but I'm filming some TV next week for a subscription online service. It's not going to be on Channel Four Documentary. It's a short. It's half an hour with myself and two other historians discussing my book.

No one would have me on TV for half an hour to discuss a historical romance, sadly. Long may that become suddenly realized, but it just wouldn't happen. With nonfiction, with traditional, that is a possibility now.

That's really exciting because, as you say, I'm going to access different readers, and there's absolutely nothing to prevent those new readers from going to my back catalog and reading historical romance. I'm also bringing a lot of historical romance with me to read the nonfiction.

Joanna: Yes, well, let's talk about that then because what may stop them is that the book is coming out under another name. So you're Emily Murdoch Perkins for the nonfiction. I went on the Amazon page, and of course, this is your only book.

Someone may come along and go, “Oh, she's only written one book,” and not having a clue. So, first of all, did you choose that? Secondly—

Were you able to list your other pen-name and things in the back?

Emily: In a previous life, a long time ago now it feels like, I was the Chief Brand Officer for a health tech company, and before that, I was an associate director for a PR company. So branding is something that I'm very comfortable in.

I really wanted to make it clear to readers that they were getting a different kind of book. It's different content, but it's also a different tone. It's very much still me, but it is different. So that was a decision that I suggested, and I actually fought for with my agent and my publishers.

From my perspective, the pros are that it really helps with separation in the writing process, especially. It helps my positioning as I'm sitting at the keyboard because I write in a slightly different tone, as I say. It also does help my agent and my editor and my publisher sales teams.

As we've already discussed, not everyone reads romance, so a lot of people have unpleasant views about it. What they didn't want, and what I didn't want, was for that new audience to be put off by the idea that she only writes smut, as I've had said to my face.

Joanna: Not that there's anything wrong with that, by the way.

Emily: I mean, I love a bit of smut. I read it, I write it. There's absolutely no problem with it, but it is unpleasant to have it thrown in your face as if it's the worst thing you could do.

Of course, a con is that you are trying to manage two pen names. Now, I've taken the decision to be very open about both of my pen names. My newsletter list, I think it's about 10,000 people now, all my socials, my website, I'm openly saying, “I'm writing this here, and I'm writing this here. You will enjoy both.”

I've kept my social media the same. So I'm piggybacking off the work and investment of the last 11 years on social and on the website.

Amazon is the difference because the algorithms, as we all know, are constantly shifting and nonsensical at times. I wanted to make it easy for Amazon to distill. Actually, my also-boughts and my comparative titles for nonfiction are different, and so I have taken a slightly different strategy.

To be quite honest, it would be a challenge to maintain two sets of social media for two pen names. I don't have the capacity to do it. Some people do, and that's amazing. I don't, and I'd rather do some things well than try to do everything poorly.

Joanna: Yes, I totally agree with you. I very much value having two names, as J.F. Penn writing my fiction, and also some nonfiction. I feel like mentally, as you say —

You become a different person with a different name, which really helps positioning.

Also, I agree with you on the branding and the marketing. I think it helps in a lot of ways. I do have different social media, but again, it's not like I hide it. I mean, similar to you, the names are still recognizable. So I think that's fine, but certainly people should know.

I think your nonfiction book is a very different audience, potentially, to your romance.

My audience is also very different. If you were writing, I don't know, maybe you wrote a historical thriller, I don't think you would need another name, right?

Emily: No, and this is the thing, I've got a more pure historical fiction book with my agent right now. So if anyone's listening and you are an editor at any publishing house, please do get in touch.

I don't see a reason to change that. It's historical. It's fiction. It fits very neatly under the Emily E K Murdoch, Emily Murdoch branding.

With nonfiction, because it is that whole category separate, I just thought it was better to have a relatively clean break. Again, as you say, I'm not hiding it. It's still my name. It's just a slightly different configuration of my name.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. So then what was also interesting is you have a blurb from Julia Quinn of Bridgerton fame, and everyone's like, oooh! It's saying, “A fantastic, feminist dance through history.” I was looking at this going, oooh, Julia!

I'm sure Julia gets a ton of people asking her to blurb. Many authors want a big name author on their cover. Many people listening will be like—

How do you get a blurb from a famous person?

Emily: Isn't it absolutely wild. I couldn't believe it when the email came through. Honestly, I wonder if Julia does get a ton of people asking her to blurb.

Joanna: Oh, because she's ‘too' famous.

Emily: She's too famous. So about five months ago, I read an interview with Cher, the singer, who we absolutely love. She agreed to cameo in an animated film a few years ago, and everyone was astonished that Cher would do this.

She was asked about it, and she said, and I'm quoting exactly here, “I've been famous for a million years, and no one has ever asked me to do a voiceover.” She was so famous that no one ever asked.

I just emailed. I went to her website, and it had her agent's email for publicity requests. I just sent him the exact same email that I'd sent a few others, and I'll outline that as best I can remember.

So it was a one line about what my book was about. I said that I would love to send the PDF copy of the book, and if, big if, if they were happy to blurb it, I would need those comments by this date, but if they didn't want to, it's absolutely fine, no pressure at all. That was literally it.

I think that sometimes people are quite literal with their blurb requests. I would imagine that if people are asking Julia Quinn of Bridgerton fame, it's historical romance authors.

I could imagine that she might be inundated with them, and then how do you pick one? If you say one yes to one of them, do you feel obliged to say yes to everyone?

I think because my request was a little different, because it was nonfiction, not essentially her category, I think it stood out.

So I would say, if you're out there and thinking, oh gosh, I would love to have a famous name attached to my book, I would see what names are adjacent to you and maybe try them.

Joanna: I think that's great. I also think that Julia Quinn, presumably, does a lot of research. She may be reading your book for research, and could have gone, “Oh, that's a good idea. That's a good idea.”

Emily: I did have a moment of panic because, of course, I write about the regency era because they have princesses,. I thought, oh my gosh, did she read that and go, “I wouldn't have done that.”

Joanna: Well, I just think we have to remember that famous authors are just like us, they just got famous. Julia, I presume, loves reading history. She was probably like, oh, yes, this is right up my alley. Therefore that was a good fit, and I think this is the most important thing.

I get pitched every single day, multiple times, and most of them are completely inappropriate pitches. I mean, you pitched me and it was completely appropriate.

That's the thing, when you're the person on the other end, whether this is appropriate or not. So the job of the person pitching really should be—

Am I pitching the right person with the right project?

Emily: Do your research. In today's modern age, when people are sharing/oversharing, there's almost no excuse not to do your research. Most people, even if they're quite private personally, they ensure that their professional brand is quite clear.

For example, I really wanted to ask Alison Weir to blurb Regina. I absolutely love Alison. I actually met her at the very beginning of my author journey. She will not remember, but she was such an inspiration. She is such an inspiration because she writes nonfiction and she writes historical fiction.

I went to her website, and there was a little note on her contact page saying, “I'm inundated. I'm not accepting any more blurbs,” and so I didn't send an email.

Now, someone might say, “Oh, well, you could have just tried.” No, I don't want to annoy someone who has been really clear about their boundary, their expectations, their ability right now. Actually, I might ask her to blurb a book in the future when she does have the capacity.

If I had gone against her wishes and emailed her anyway, I can pretty much guarantee you my email would be blocked and it would be ignored the next time I asked. So there's a way to research, and it's not difficult. It's all online.

Joanna: Yes. In fact, on my contact page, it says, “I do not accept guest post submissions,” and every day I get two or three guest post submissions.

Emily: I'm cringing.

Joanna: I'm like, seriously. I just delete it. I don't reply anymore. So I think you're right.

Also, just again, Julia Quinn is a normal person, like we're normal people, and people have lives going on. It's not all about you. It's that they have their life.

Be accepting when people either don't reply or you just get a no.

It just might be the wrong time. So I really love that.

Emily: Sometimes you get a yes that becomes a no. So I also asked the authors of Lady Jane to blurb, who wrote the amazing book which the TV series was made of. They said, absolutely, we'd love to do that. Then the show got canceled, and you know what, they had other more important things to do.

I just sent a note being like, you know what, focus on yourselves, focus on what's next. We are all people, as you say. People have a lot going on, and life always comes first.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. I did want to ask you about marketing because obviously you've spent like a decade or so marketing romance on Amazon, presumably, mainly, and that is completely different to what you're now doing. So tell us—

How are you marketing things differently for nonfiction? Also, what's the split between you and the publisher?

Emily: I knew early on that I would be spread way too thin if I tried to manage completely different strategies and completely different tactics for all the things that I want to continue doing for historical romance.

I knew that years ago. I knew that when I started thinking I would like to do more things, I would like to diversify. So I have been very conscious in making myself the brand. Emily is the brand.

So whether I'm writing historical romance as Emily E K Murdoch or historical nonfiction as Emily Murdoch Perkins, I am passionate, I'm curious. I love history. I love unusual facts. I love sharing photos of churches or old buildings. I love sharing photos of the food I'm cooking.

Emily loves cheese, long country walks, no matter what she's writing. So that has been a really crucial foundation that I put in place quite a few years ago, so that when this happened, I had a foundation that I could kind of stand on without trying to juggle about a bazillion things.

Having said that, having a traditional publisher means I now have Graham, who's fantastic. Thank you, Graham. He is the PR and promotions and marketing manager at The History Press.

I get an email from him at least twice a week with ideas of pitches that he's done, or I'm speaking to this person, I'm speaking to that person. As an indie, I pitched broadsheets and I pitched newspapers, I got absolutely nowhere.

That was someone who's, at the time, full time job was pitching for clients to broadsheets and newspapers, and I got loads of coverage for them.

So things are different now, and as I said, I had a feature published for The Daily Mirror. It's a UK national newspaper with something like 800,000 copies printed every day. 32 million adults individually visit the website every month, and they paid me to write it.

There are higher profile opportunities with trad, but that is based on that foundational brand of Emily, the passionate historian who loves saying, “Did you know?” That enables me to then leverage the opportunities that the publishers are working to bring to me. Does that make sense?

Joanna: Did you know? Did you know that I almost started another podcast called, “Did You Know?”

Emily: Joanna, should we do it together?!

Joanna: Oh, don't say that because that literally went into my head. We'll talk about this offline and see what the listeners think.

It's so great you have Graham. I think that's really interesting. I think a lot of authors who get traditional publishing deals don't seem to get so much active PR.

I guess sometimes they do get it, but it's only in a short period around launch, and then that person obviously moves onto another author. As we speak, you're in that launch period, aren't you? That kind of launch period?

Emily: So much we can unpack here. When I was speaking to different imprints and different publishers about Regina, before we'd sold it, it was really important to me, not that I got a ton of money in advance because I didn't, but actually how important I was going to be valued by the publishers.

I am moving into a new category, nonfiction. I don't have any experience in nonfiction. I don't have pure nonfiction readers that I can bring to the table.

So I knew that if I was essentially a midlist author for that imprint, someone who, sure, we'll publish the book, but we're not going to make a song and dance out about it. We're not going to push you forward for PR and promotions. We're not going to do a big marketing campaign. I knew that book would not succeed.

I needed a partnership with the publisher. I chose The History Press because they are smaller. They are independent. They print here in the UK.

They said to me, you are going to be one of our most important titles for autumn/winter, and we are going to put a lot behind it. So that gave me a lot of confidence, and I think a lot of openness between us.

I had a call with my commissioning editor yesterday, and most of the call was, right, what do I want The History Press to be doing? What does The History Press want me to be doing?

We can be quite open about that because we said way at the beginning that we are going to really push this, but it requires a lot of input from both sides.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's great in thinking of a partnership. Again, you're very experienced. You've been doing this a while, and you have different expectations than someone who maybe it's their first book, and they don't really know the business of things.

Like you said, your aim is to make everyone more money.

We want to make money, but also the point is for a publisher to look at you and see money. They're a business, and that's what they want.

I think that's a real mindset shift that authors who are also business people have, and authors who potentially are not, don't have. So just on the future of that—

Do you see yourself writing more of these historical nonfiction books? Or is this more of an experiment?

Emily: This is an experiment that is going so well, so far that my second nonfiction book proposal is currently being shopped by my agent. I can't say any more than that because discussions are ongoing, insert business talk here.

It's something that I've enjoyed and that is important to me. I spend all day writing, creating, networking, promoting. This is my job. I spend more time here than with my significant other. If I'm not going to enjoy it, I don't really want to do it again.

Also, the response from readers has been so positive. The pre-order numbers look very positive. So it's definitely something that I would like to do again.

I am able because I write full time, and I'm conscious that a lot of people aren't at that stage, or don't want to be at that stage. That's not something they're aiming for. I think it's also important to stay I am child-free by choice, and I have no caring responsibilities, and that is on purpose.

I have a lot of capacity, but I don't want to spend that capacity on something I don't enjoy. I've really loved exploring a different type of craft, a different type of audience, a different type of marketing, a different type of research.

I have been challenged, not all of it has been wonderful, but it's something that I could see myself doing alongside my fiction for a really long time.

Joanna: That's great. We're almost out of time, but I did just want to ask about something you've mentioned several times, diversification. Obviously, your business is actually more than just books.

Tell us about your multiple streams of income.

Emily: Well, I very much followed the advice of someone called Joanna Penn, who really understands the author mindset. So I have multiple streams of income. Some of them are very big, and some of them are very small that I hope to grow, or actually that can just tick over and be passive in their own way.

I'm wide with half of my self-published books. I'm in KU for the other half. I teach my own courses.

I have a course called “You Can Write More Words” which is designed specifically to help people either write more words in the same amount of time or compress how much time you need to write the same number of words. I'm more than happy to offer a 75% off coupon for your listeners.

I teach through other organizations. So I have three classes a year come out through the Regency Academy. I teach a masterclass once a year or so. So I'm doing one this November with The History Quill.

I have Patreon, where I'm writing a Patreon-exclusive historical romance, which is one chapter a week. I offer developmental editing, line editing, I proofread. It's a lot, but it's not all of these things all of the time. I think that's really important.

Some things are set and forget. Some books I wrote a decade ago. Some teaching, I set up the course, and then it's self-service. I only take on multiple streams of income that I enjoy, which now I say that aloud, has also been a theme of this chat.

If I don't enjoy it, chances are that I won't do it well. I only want to be putting out work into the world, and being a good person to work with, someone that people want to work with, and creating brilliant books that people love to read and reread. That's really, really important to me.

Joanna: Fantastic.

You did offer a coupon for your course. Does that have a code?

Emily: It has a code. I will make the code JOANNA, all caps. Here's the course again.

Joanna: Great. We'll put that in the show notes because I'm sure some people will be interested in that.

Where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online?

Emily: Please do read Regina. I would love for people to read and enjoy it. You can get it anywhere that books are sold. You can find me at @EmilyEKMurdoch. That's Murdoch ending with C-H. That's all the socials, and it's also my website, EmilyEKMurdoch.com.

If you want to get in touch with me, any editing support, my courses, any collaborations, I love hearing from other authors and other creatives. That's [email protected].

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Emily. That was great.

Emily: My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Takeaways

• Emily always wanted to be a writer from a young age.
• She writes 10,000 words a day, enabling rapid releases.
• Editing is a challenging but necessary part of the writing process.
• Research is crucial for writing historical fiction.
• Emily's non-fiction book explores untold stories of women in history.
• Traditional publishing has its challenges, especially for non-fiction.
• Building a brand as an author is essential for success.
• Networking can open doors to new opportunities.
• Diversification in writing can lead to multiple income streams.
• Enjoying the writing process is key to long-term success.

The post Writing Historical Fiction And Non-Fiction With Emily E K Murdoch first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can the ‘hungry author' mindset help you become more of a successful author? Why do you need to shift your point of view to that of the reader so your book resonates with them? What are some of the key aspects of writing and marketing non-fiction books? Ariel Curry gives her tips in this episode.

In the intro, tackling imposter syndrome [Ink in Your Veins];
Novel Study: Decoding the Secrets and Structures of Contemporary Fiction by Kristen Tate; StoryBundle for Writers; Publishing for Profit conference from ALLi; Tap to Pay on mobile for live events [Zettle/PayPal]; Blood Vintage and Discovery Writing webinar; I'm on The Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast, and The Nightmare Engine Podcast.

Plus, Leveraging AI for book covers and ads [Brave New Bookshelf]; More controls coming for Google NotebookLM [VentureBeat]; Meta’s new generative video model, Movie Gen.

Today’s show is sponsored by FindawayVoices by Spotify, the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world’s largest audiobook platforms. Take your audiobook everywhere to earn everywhere with Findaway Voices by Spotify. Go to findawayvoices.com/penn to publish your next audiobook project.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Ariel Curry is a writer, editor and book coach, and the co-author of Hungry Authors: The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• What is a hungry author?
• The mindset needed for a long-term author career
• Subgenres of nonfiction and how to find and market to their audiences
• Key elements of a book map
• Writing with a reader-focused mindset
• Top reasons why editors and agents reject books
• The importance of platform for nonfiction authors
• Leveraging podcasts for marketing nonfiction books

You can find Ariel at HungryAuthors.com

Transcript of Interview with Ariel Curry

Joanna: Ariel Curry is a writer, editor and book coach, and the co-author of Hungry Authors: The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book. So welcome to the show, Ariel.

Ariel: Thank you so much for having me, Joanna. I'm so happy to be here.

Joanna: Great. Well, first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and the publishing industry.

Ariel: Sure. Well, like many people in the publishing industry, I was an English major who didn't really know what she wanted to do. I thought I might do teaching. I tried that for a little bit. That did not go well.

So I thought, you know what, why not just shoot for the stars? I've always loved books, and so I thought, well, it never hurts to apply to publishing internships. So I did that. I got an internship in London at Anthem Press, which is a little bit more of an academic publisher. That eventually led to a role as an editorial assistant at Corwin Press in California. Then from there, I moved up the ladder to acquisitions editor.

Then I took a little bit of a break from the traditional publishing corporate world for a few years. I was freelancing, I was doing collaborations, and I was doing developmental editing.

Then just recently, I decided to rejoin the corporate publishing industry, and I took a role as an acquisitions editor at Sourcebooks. So that's where I am currently, and I specialize in nonfiction.

Joanna: What is it like being on the other side of the fence as an author?

Ariel: It is a lot of fun. The thing that I always remind authors of is it's a business. So my job there is to be an investor in great ideas, and great writers, and great writing. I think that's the part that a lot of people don't necessarily understand.

Sometimes it's a little sad because it seems to take some of the romance and the feelings of creativity out of it, I think, but at the end of the day, everyone in the publishing industry just truly loves books. So we totally get the romance and the special feelings that come with pouring everything that you have into a book.

Someone has to be the person to make it successful on a broad scale. That's what people in the publishing industry are here to do is to take the very, very, very best of writers and writing and help to blast that, hopefully as to as wide an audience as possible. That's what we're all here to do.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of the romance away, but honestly, I absolutely love what I do. I love working in the corporate publishing sphere, so I don't see that going away anytime soon.

Joanna: That's great. Well, let's get into the book because I think it is good to know of your background, too. For nonfiction authors, in particular, is what we're really talking about today. Also, to know the mindset of an acquisitions editor is great. So getting into the book—

What is your definition of a ‘hungry author,' and why is mindset so important?

Ariel: Yes, so here's our official definition of a hungry author.

We say, “A hungry author is a writer who is determined to succeed. They want to and will be published. They take feedback well and don't shy away from the hard work. You will find their butts in the chairs and fingers on the keyboard. They believe in their ideas and know they will impact others. “

So we wanted to write this book, and we called it Hungry Authors because my co-author, Liz Morrow, and I—she is a full time collaborator, she's a ghost writer, and obviously I work in acquisitions.

We just saw every single day that authors, even with small to no platform—which is the thing that everyone says you have to have but —

Authors with little to no platforms still can, and do all the time, reach the pinnacles of publishing success.

Like if you look at the New York Times Bestseller list, you will often find authors that you cannot find on social media. We were like, what is it about those people? How do they break the code or go against the grain of all of this advice that we typically hear that, “Oh, you have to…”

Especially for nonfiction, “You've got to have a great platform. You've got to be a celebrity.” There's all of these myths around what you have to be or have to have to make it and to succeed as a traditionally published author. We know from both of our experience that that's not necessarily true.

As she and I both started working with more clients who were doing that, who were getting traditional book deals, who were self-publishing their books to great success, we were like, what is it that makes these authors so different?

In the reverse and opposite end, why is it that some authors with huge platforms can publish a book and it's a total flop? We've realized it's their mindset.

Hungry authors are determined that they're going to make it happen no matter what.

It's that gumption and determination and grit that compels them to succeed. Those are the kinds of authors that, especially as an acquisitions editor, I'm like, I want to work with someone like that.

If I have confidence, and I can see that they are determined to succeed and to make it work, and they're working as hard as they can to make it happen, then I have more confidence in them. I want to go wherever they're going.

So that's what we wanted to encourage authors with, is to have that gumption and to embody that determination.

Joanna: Yes, I totally get what you mean. It's interesting, I first self-published in 2007, and in the last almost 16 or 17 years, whatever it is, there have been so many authors who I've seen along the way who have left the industry. It's one of the things I've asked often is—

How do you have a long-term career as an author?

This comes up over and over again, this grit, resilience, bouncing back, trying again. You're calling it being hungry, I guess, being hungry for it. It's almost like just keeping going.

It might not happen with the first book or the second book, or I will often think it might not ever happen. You might not ever hit the New York Times list or whatever.

If you're creating the books you want to create in the world, and you're making the impact you want to make, then that's what keeps you going.

So I guess this is important for longevity as well. You must see this in the industry.

Ariel: Yes, that's right. In fact, in chapter one of our book, we've got five tenets or five components of the hungry author's mindset, and one of them is, “This book is just my first book, or my second book, or my third book, but I will write more books.” That longevity piece of it is really vital.

To me, that's almost the most important component of the hungry author's mindset because that component says, “I'm in it for me. I'm in it for the belief that I have in my own writing. It's for the determination and the commitment I feel to serving my readers.”

So when you have your “why” aligned in that way, when you really know I'm in it for the journey, and not necessarily the destination, you will be able to keep going and to be resilient. You'll also have more success, ironically.

Joanna: Yes, that is ironic. We'll come back to that because we are, in this approach, designing a book, but sometimes that doesn't work either. So let's just first define nonfiction because I feel like it's quite a misunderstood term, almost. There's so many subcategories.

Can you talk a bit about what goes under this broad category of nonfiction?

Ariel: Yes. So at the broadest level, nonfiction are books that, if it's a story, then it's grounded in reality, and it's based on true events that truly happened and usually can be factually proven. Although sometimes in memoir, there aren't necessarily other sources that can verify the story.

Certainly in narrative nonfiction, there are going to be primary sources and other things that you're using that would validate the story as you were telling it. Then it's also informational books.

So in the story category, we've got the two primary genres are going to be narrative nonfiction, which are stories about real life people or places, or even time periods, where that thing is the subject of the story. Then you've got memoir, which is the author's own story about a situation or event in their life.

On the informational side, you've got self-help, which is nonfiction that is directed towards a transformation in the reader's life. Then you've got thought leadership, which is a book that is meant to transform our society as a whole.

So when I think of thought leadership books, I'm thinking of like Siddhartha Mukherjee or like Simon Sinek, or the really big names that you hear about in these kind of groundbreaking books.

Like I would say, Jonathan Haidt's new book, The Anxious Generation, would be an example of a thought leadership book. His aim is really to expose this part of our society, and part of how the world works, and what's happening in the zeitgeist right now, and help us have a deeper understanding of that.

He's not necessarily trying to change the reader at an individual level, although that may happen, but really the goal is more broad societal change for thought leadership books.

Joanna: There would also potentially be the academic side.

So for example, a book on history, that's not either of those other things.

Ariel: Right. Yes, that's true. In the Hungry Authors book, we don't talk a lot about reference books. We kind of narrowed it down to what are the genres that people come to us for help with the most and that are the most like commercial nonfiction genres.

So, yes, there is certainly history, there's reference books, there's even like professional development books in some more niche categories. I used to work in education professional development.

There's books that are professional development for bankers, or for finance experts, or whatever. There's all kinds of nonfiction books that are in more niche categories as well.

Joanna: Well, I think this gets to an important point. You mentioned the word commercial, and I feel like that is what a lot of beginning authors certainly forget about.

I was thinking back to when I wrote my first nonfiction book in 2007, I later rewrote it as Career Change, and I really thought it was for everyone. Like, when people say, oh, who's the book for? I'd be like, oh, it's for everyone.

I still hear that, and I'm sure you hear that. It's like, okay, this is a real issue with new authors, but can be an issue with established authors as well.

How can we identify our audience and our target market and use that to shape the book and the marketing?

Ariel: Yes, that's such a good question. You're right, it comes up all the time, and it plays into that genre factor that we were just talking about too.

So we always tell authors to think about who would enjoy your book most, or who would benefit most from your book. Start there.

Yes, maybe everyone could find some kind of way into your book, but who are the people who are going to see your book and just immediately think, “Oh my gosh, that is for me. I need that,” and they're going to get the maximum benefit out of it. Think about those people.

That's going to be your primary audience. Then if there are other audiences that might also benefit, but maybe to a little bit lesser extent, those are going to be your secondary or tertiary audiences.

It really, for me, starts with that question of:

Who is going to enjoy my book the most, or benefit from it the most?

We like to say too about audience, that you have to find your goldilocks audience.

You don't want your audience to be too big because, like you said, if it's too big, if you try to make something that's going to appeal to everyone, it's not going to deliver the maximum benefits for anyone.

So that's not going to be good because no one is going to pick up your book and feel like, “oh, this is for me,” if you try to make it work for everyone. On the opposite side, you also don't want it to be so incredibly niche and specific that your audience is like 20 people.

For example, I had someone come to me one time and say, “Okay, I want to write a book that is for Christian campus leaders who serve veterans with PTSD through paper craft making.” I'm not joking there, that is a real story.

I was like, there are so many filters on your audience there that I would be shocked if we can find five Christian campus leaders who serve military veterans with PTSD through paper craft making. I would just be shocked if we could find five. So that's clearly too small of an audience.

So it has to be somewhere in between, and the right in between is going to look a little bit different depending on whatever your topic is.

You want to find enough people that you could sell a lot of books, but not so many people that your book doesn't appeal to anyone.

Joanna: Yes, it is really hard.

I've written one memoir, which is called Pilgrimage, so even with just the word, you're going know if either you're interested or you're not interested. It's a solo travel book, and there are a lot of other intersecting audiences, but the title I feel like makes a big difference.

I mean, like your book title. Again—

For nonfiction, a title and a good subtitle is a really good way to niche down your audience.

Ariel: Yes, definitely. As many authors do, when we were dreaming up the book that would become Hungry Authors, we did have a moment where we were like, well, should we just make this really broad? Should we make it about finding your purpose or whatever?

Then we're like, hold on, hold on. We serve writers. That's who we can serve best and who would benefit the most from our work. So we put some reins on our dreams for a minute, and maybe we'll branch out later in future books, but it is really important to really get clear on those questions.

Yes, the title has to reflect the people that you're trying to reach. They have to see your title and immediately go, “Ooh, that could be me,” or, “I really want that transformation in my life.”

Joanna: Let's get into the book map because you really emphasize mapping out a book before writing a draft. I'm a discovery writer, so I find this challenging.

Give us the key elements of what goes into a book map.

So people can kind of picture it. I know there's a lot in the book, but try and give us an overview.

Ariel: Yes, definitely. I love the term discovery writer, rather than pantsing. I think discovery writer really captures what you're trying to do so much better than pantsing. To be fair, I do think that a book map can be helpful for discovery writers as well, almost as more of an intervention.

So I have had authors come to me before and say, “I wrote this—for lack of a better term—like word vomit type draft. I kind of poured out everything I know, but I know it's a mess, and I don't know how to start organizing it. So I've got 60,000 words, but they're all a loose jumble of puzzle pieces, and I need you to help me create a picture from them.”

So in those kinds of situations, I would also say a book map is super helpful for imposing a structure, even after the fact. After you've got all the puzzle pieces on the table, a book map is going to help you arrange those puzzle pieces into something that looks like a comprehensive and cohesive picture. So to answer your question—

A book map is a visual depiction or visual representation of your book's content.

That can be a straightforward outline at its most basic level. Like in school, most of us learned how to make a super basic outline.

I would say that's the foundation of a book map is the outline concepts, but we take that initial outlining so much further. What we saw kept happening is that authors would start writing, and even if they had created a very vague table of contents.

They're like, okay, I know I'm going to need an introduction. I know I'm going to need a chapter one. They map out 10 chapters and a conclusion, and then they start writing, and they still get stuck somewhere in like chapter four, chapter three, because they don't actually know what's going to go in those chapters.

So sometimes we saw that a lot of authors when they create an “outline”, they were really just identifying topics for each supposed chapter. That kind of an outline did not give them a really clear pathway to how all of those pieces fit together, what is actually going to go in those chapters.

What we do is start with identifying the transformation that you're trying to accomplish. If you're writing memoir, then you're trying to depict the transformation of yourself, your own transformation through an event or circumstance in your life.

If you're writing a prescriptive nonfiction book, and that's going to be self-help or thought leadership, then you're trying to accomplish a transformation for the reader. So you start with—

What is the transformation I'm trying to accomplish for the reader or for myself?

Then you say, okay, what are the big steps that need to happen to convey that transformation? So where am I starting? Where are we trying to end? Then what are all the big steps in between to get from beginning to end? Then those big steps are typically going to be your chapters.

From there, then you have to say, okay, for each chapter, what is the little big idea that I'm trying to convey in that chapter? So, often for prescriptive nonfiction, each chapter is going to have some kind of smaller argument that is going to contribute towards the reader's change towards that transformation.

Then you have to say, okay, well, how do I defend that little argument? If chapter seven is about why you should never take your car to a mechanic and you should learn how to fix your car yourself, what are the things you're going to need to defend that argument?

So a book map is going to help you think through all of the pieces that you need to defend your argument in every single chapter, and then on a broad scale, for the entire book.

So we like to see a book map that identifies the overall transformation, all of the chapters, and all of the stuff that's going in the chapters.

Obviously, for memoir, for narrative nonfiction, what's going to go in the chapters is going to be a little bit different. It's going to be the key scenes that add up to a smaller bit of the transformation in your story. I feel like that's a little complicated to talk about without a picture, but hopefully that helps.

Joanna: My two cents on this as a discovery writer is, first of all, your book has a lot for people who are discovery writers. So I think that's important to say.

Secondly, as a discovery writer who has written quite a lot of nonfiction, and even for the memoir I wrote, I kind of also think about it as bottom up or top down.

You're doing a top down structure where you're like, it goes this way and then it goes back up. Whereas discovery writers write a ton of stuff and then organize it later.

So every single nonfiction book I have written and published, I have not known the structure until I have enough words that suddenly it kind of fell into place. Every single book I have restructured about three quarters through the project.

I think that the same thing ends up happening regardless of how you write, but the idea of the book map—so if people listening are like, I'm a discovery writer and what you just said was just too structured, then you can do it later on in the process.

It's actually a really good thing when you start to, I say—

Change your head from the writer to the reader.

Once you switch your head to the reader, you have to structure this.

Ariel: Exactly, and I think that's part of why my co-author, Liz, and I believe so strongly in this method is because it's very reader-focused. A lot of writing teachers come at it from a very author-focused perspective, and there's nothing wrong with that.

We firmly believe in the benefits and the power of writing for the benefit of the author.

As professionals who work in the traditional publishing space, again, our bias and our lens is towards that commercial end product.

We are trying to create every single day, and our full time jobs are to create marketable, successful, commercial books. So if that's the kind of book you want to write, something that has the potential to sell on a broad scale, then you're going to need to think about it from the reader's perspective.

Like you said, knowing that transformation and being able to convey some kind of structure that feels really intuitive to the reader. Actually, I would say, often the structure facilitates the reader's understanding of what you're trying to say.

That's what you're going to need at some point, whether it comes at the very beginning or even after you write the draft. You're going to need that commercial lens at some point.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. I just feel that for discovery writers, it just comes later on in the process, but it still has to come.

You are an acquisitions editor, and this is something that if people are pitching nonfiction, it's differently to fiction. With fiction, you generally have to have finished the book, but with nonfiction, people can pitch projects without having written the book.

What's interesting, in the book you say, “Much of the job is saying no, even to authors, books, and possibilities you think are good.”

Tell us a bit more about why editors and agents might say ‘no' to book projects?

Ariel: Sure. Well, on the most basic level, it could just be that it's your project. As wonderful and as amazing as it sounds, and as good as your writing is or whatever, it's just not something that we do. Or it's just not something that we have the resources to support.

So every publisher, to some extent, except maybe the Big Five because they tend to kind of do everything, but even within the Big Five, there are imprints where they specialize.

Like, there's Portfolio that does more business-type stuff. Then there's Atria that does more of the commercial, interesting, more scientific stuff sometimes. There are different imprints that focus on different things, even within the Big Five.

So a really wise literary agent is going to be looking at a proposal and thinking which imprints or which editors at which publishers specialize in this thing. Those are the people that I'm going to be trying to pitch.

So an agent themselves will have, here are the things that I'm really passionate about, here are the things that I love to represent, and here are the connections in my network that I have.

So if a literary agent focuses on nonfiction and they get a book of poetry, they might go, “Well, I just don't have the connections to all of the poetry editors in the industry, so I just can't represent this.”

You've got to make sure that whoever you're pitching actually does the thing that you're trying to do. That's kind of at the ground level, but then we can talk about platform.

Platform definitely plays a part as well.

I would say there are different platform expectations, depending on the publisher, depending on your genre. With fiction and memoir, platform isn't quite as strong a requirement as it is for prescriptive nonfiction.

In prescriptive nonfiction, the reader is looking to you as a credible authority. So if you don't have some kind of proof as a credible authority, it's going to be hard for a publisher to sell your book or an agent to sell your book. So that's something to keep in mind as well.

I would also say that often authors have not done enough research to know what other books are already out there that are doing the same thing. Often I reject books because an author comes to me and they're like, “This is brilliant. This is groundbreaking. This is going to be the book that changes the game on X.”

I'm like, okay, how is it different from these five other books on that same topic? Either they don't know, or what they tell me is actually exactly what those other books say. I'm like, okay, clearly you have not done your research.

That is honestly the biggest thing is that the idea an author's pitching isn't actually new, or isn't actually that different from what everyone else is saying.

That is one thing that I tell authors over and over again. I'm like, okay —

Go read your five comps and come back and maybe think harder about how you want to offer something new and different to the conversation.

Joanna: Yes, and I have a tip for everyone here.

If people haven't tried ChatGPT for this, it is so good. If you say, “My book is like ‘this book, this book and this book.' Please give me a list of 30 more books in this area,” it's going to give it to you, and then you can go research them.

I find it super, super useful. I've been doing it with a latest folk horror novel, but I find this very useful.

I feel like authors struggle with comps because it's pretty research intensive. Use the tools where you can.

Ariel: That is such good advice. We are big fans of using AI where appropriate and in ways, obviously, that are ethical, but certainly comps research. I've been using Blinkist. Do you know Blinkist?

Joanna: Yes, it does summaries, right?

Ariel: Yes, so I've been using Blinkist. If I need to know what is this book about, and I need the top five points about it, but I don't really have time to go read a 320 page book, then I go to Blinkist and see if I can find a really in depth summary.

It'll even read it out loud to you so I can almost listen to the summary like a podcast. Then it's like, okay, all right, now I know the main gist of this book. It is so incredibly helpful. So use your tools, absolutely, to help you do that research.

Joanna: On that, I mean, obviously you mentioned the dreaded word “platform”, but also said it is important for nonfiction. So what are some of the elements?

I feel like there was a period where people really wanted high social media followings, and then I think publishers realized that high following on social media doesn't necessarily translate to high book sales. Has that changed?

What are the things that you think nonfiction authors, in particular, should look for with their platform?

Ariel: Yes, I think you're right that there has been a softening, I'll say. Platform is still important, and I still see a lot of agents who will not work with authors who do not have a platform.

I don't just mean social media because sometimes, like David Grand, I don't think David Grand is on social media, but you better bet that every agent would love to be his agent, and every editor would love to be his editor. He does have a platform because he's a prolific writer and he's earned his stripes in other ways.

So that's the thing with platform, is there are lots of ways to build a platform. So I think nonfiction authors, if social media is not your thing—and I get it because it's not my thing either. I do it because I kind of feel like I have to, which is the same for a lot of authors I know.

You can build your platform in many ways. You can build your platform with speaking engagements, or with selling online courses, or doing consulting, or writing for the New York Times, or pitching articles at whatever publications.

You can build your platform in a lot of other ways that are not dependent on social media.

I would say that's probably a smart way to build your platform anyways because social media is fickle, and the algorithms change, and it's really hard to grow a platform on social media.

So I do still see that agents and publishers want a larger platform. They care about it because it is, like I said, it's proof that you can attract an audience to your message.

Again, going back to the fact that agents are investors. Think about it from if you were looking to invest in something, and you've got two projects in front of you.

One of them is like a really great idea, really great writing, but entirely unknown in the universe. Versus a project that has a really great idea, really great writing, and they've already got 20,000 subscribers to their newsletter list, and they've already proven that they can sell online courses, and they're out speaking.

I mean, which one do you think is going to be more successful? Obviously, the second one.

You just have to look at it like agents and editors are investors, and they're going to pick the best bets for potentially getting a return on their investment.

Joanna: I think that's a good way to think about it. Just on social media, my husband is in corporate and uses LinkedIn a lot.

I feel like there's such a focus in the media industry around BookTok and Instagram, but— LinkedIn, for nonfiction, seems to be the very best social network to build on. What are your thoughts on that for nonfiction?

Ariel: Yes, I think that's a really good point. LinkedIn has a lot of tools that are cool, like you can do a LinkedIn newsletter. Again, the downside of that is that you're not necessarily able to keep all of your subscribers' email addresses. So that's the downside.

I wouldn't be dependent on LinkedIn, but if you can use LinkedIn to grow your network and then use that to convert people to actual email subscribers, that seems like a really, really good way to go.

You're right, that is where a lot of the more professional spaces are. So if you're a nonfiction author, especially doing prescriptive nonfiction, LinkedIn might be a really good place to build your audience.

Joanna: I get a lot of my recommendations from podcasting because I mainly listen to podcasts, and I listen to audiobooks and nonfiction as well when I'm walking and all of this. So I actually get so many recommendations from podcasting.

You have The Hungry Authors Podcast, and obviously you're here, you pitched my podcast.

What part do you think podcasting plays in marketing nonfiction?

Obviously, people don't need to start their own show, but any tips around doing audio?

Ariel: Yes, I personally think that podcasting is such a great way to build your platform because you're able to leverage other people's platforms.

To be totally transparent, obviously I pitched you because I'm like, well, I've been following you for over a decade, and I know you've got a great audience already built in. Any nonfiction authors who are listening to you, I want to reach those people, so I'm going to pitch her to go on this podcast.

You don't have to have your own podcast, like you said, to do that. In fact, sometimes it's almost better to just be a really frequent guest on other people's podcasts because you're reaching new audiences all the time, and you're growing your own audience by utilizing their audiences.

So I think it's a super smart strategy for building your platform, building your audience, and getting word about your book out there. It's one of the top things that I recommend to authors all the time.

When I was ghost writing book proposals for clients, I would always include a podcast section of the book proposal and say, okay, let's identify like 20 really likely podcasts that you feel comfortable pitching, and let's promise that you're going to pitch those podcasts when your book comes out.

Obviously, you don't know yet if they're going to say yes, but that's going to look really attractive to publishers. Just like you, so many nonfiction listeners are listening to podcasts because it's an information based platform, and they love reading information.

If you're selling a prescriptive nonfiction book that is entirely information, then it makes sense to market it on another information-based media.

Joanna: Yes, then on that, I get so many pitches every day, like a ridiculous number of pitches. I think traditional publishing discovered podcasts, and now it's crazy.

I mean, I get them from big publishers every day for books that are completely irrelevant to my show. So when a pitch like yours arrives, I obviously am interested.

What tips can you give people for pitching in a way that makes the podcast host go, “Yes, please!”

Ariel: So I always start by identifying the podcasts that your complimentary authors have been on. So if you say, okay, these are my top five comp books—by comp, I mean complimentary or competing or comparative books, whatever you want comp to be short for.

Identify those top books and then look at the podcasts that those authors have been on. Those are going to be your most likely podcasts to start pitching. You can say in your query to them, “Hey, you had this person on.”

For a writing podcast, I might say like, “Oh, hey, you had Jane Friedman on your podcast, or you had Joanna Penn on your podcast, or you had AJ Harper on your podcast. Guess what? I'm friends with that person, and we have a lot of things in common. I've written a similar book, and I think it might appeal to your audience in these ways.”

Being really careful about podcasts that you pitch is the first part. Just like with pitching agents and editors, pitch the right people.

Then using some kind of personal connection like that is really, really helpful too. “Like I am acquainted with the person that you've already interviewed,” or, “We have some kind of connection.” I find that works really well too is finding a point of connection.

Even being able to say, like, “Hey, I'm a big fan, genuinely. I'm genuinely a big fan of yours.” That is obviously very complimentary to people, and tends to soften the awkwardness, potentially, of a cold email.

Then being really explicit about how your information or your topic can benefit their listeners.

So that's the key thing, too. In any cold query that I'm making, I like to just do kind of a bulleted list of like, here are the things that I can talk about that I think your listeners would love to learn about. So hopefully that's going to seal the deal for you.

Joanna: Yes, I think that helps. That bullet list of how your book has specific topics that my audience will like, that is the key. It's just incredible how many pitches I get, mainly from traditional publishing now, and they are just a press release about a book.

Actually, that's not a pitch, but they're using the email to pitch the podcast. They're like, “Do you want to interview this author?” and then they put in a press release about a book.

I guess, like you were saying, a lot of the time you don't have time to read the whole book. Like with your book, I've scanned through it. Obviously, I didn't read every single line, but I went through it and looked at little bits of it and pulled out quotes and things.

It seems to me that so often when people are pitching, they don't put themselves in the position of the podcast host.

So again, it's so funny because it echoes what you were saying earlier around thinking about what the reader wants from a book, or an editor wants, or an acquisitions person wants.

The big tip is putting yourself in the position of the person on the other end.

Ariel: That's right. Yes, that is exactly right. It's such an important skill. With pitching, like publicists sending you a cold query and just including the press release, I would say that's just a factor of they just don't have a lot of time.

They are trying to pitch several books to so many people, and it does take time to really put together a thoughtful query and a thoughtful pitch. So for myself, I guess this is another tip, I tend to block out some time.

Like, okay, I'm going to do an hour, and I'm just going to do five pitches. My goal in that hour is to do five pitches. It doesn't sound like a lot, but actually, when you are taking the time to put a lot of thought into a query and really customize it for whoever's receiving that query, it does take time.

So certainly with podcasting, and definitely with pitching books, you're going to want to take some time to be really thoughtful about how you're making a query.

Like you said, it really makes a difference to the person who's receiving it. You're wanting that person to say yes to you, so it's worth the time to make sure that they're going to really enjoy receiving your query.

Joanna: Yes. It is a super useful book. It's very well organized. I think people will find it useful.

Where can people find you, and the book, and everything else online?

Ariel: So you can find everything that we do on HungryAuthors.com. We've got the podcast, which you mentioned. We also do online cohorts a couple times a year. We obviously have the book. Then you can follow us on social media at HungryAuthors as well.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Ariel. That was great.

Ariel: Thank you so much, Joanna.

The post Author Mindset, Writing And Marketing Non-Fiction With Ariel Curry first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you bring laughter into your books regardless of genre? What are the challenges of writing a novel after an award-winning career as a comedy writer for TV and radio? Dave Cohen shares his lessons learned in this interview.

In the intro, how to keep a career fresh over multiple books [Author Nation Podcast]; Best practices of successful indie authors [Draft2Digital];
Director James Cameron joins the board of Stability AI [Hollywood Reporter];
Google NotebookLM; Full audio expanding snippet; Photos from Ely Cathedral; Blood Vintage.

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Dave Cohen is a multi-award-winning BBC comedy writer who has worked on shows like Horrible Histories, as well as a comedy novelist, podcaster, and author of nonfiction. His latest book is Funny Up Your Fiction: How to Add Light, Shade, and Laughs to Your Novel.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• The shift from writing for TV to self-publishing novels
• Why comedy is important for writers
• Writing for individual sense of humour vs. broader appeal
• Constructing characters that readers will find funny
• Avoiding cliches in comedy
• Creating covers for comic novels based on genre crossovers
• Cancel culture and its affect on writing humour
• Tips for keeping a positive mindset and creating opportunities

You can find Dave at DaveCohen.org.uk.

Transcript of Interview with Dave Cohen

Joanna: Dave Cohen is a multi-award-winning BBC comedy writer who has worked on shows like Horrible Histories, as well as a comedy novelist, podcaster, and author of nonfiction. His latest book is How to Write a Funny Novel. So welcome to the show, Dave.

Dave: Hi. Thanks very much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into books and self-publishing after focusing more on writing for screen and performance in previous decades.

Dave: Well, I'd always wanted to be a novelist, really since I was a teenager, but I got a little bit distracted on the way. I happened to spend 10 years as a stand-up comedian, and that was followed by about 20 years of writing for comedy for TV and radio.

It was never quite the right time to start that novel writing career. Then I got to my 59th birthday, this was in 2017, and I finally thought, well, this is the time that I decide I have to write the novel now. I have to do it now and be damned.

So I did, and I wrote my first novel. I was very pleased, and I got it all ready to send off to agents. I finished it and it was ready March 2020, at which point COVID happened.

Every one of my comedy friends and colleagues, stand-up comedians, writers, all of the people who are far more successful than me, were suddenly out of work. So they had to think, “What am I going to do next? I'll write a book.”

So I suddenly thought, ah, right, my book isn't going to get anywhere with an agent, I might as well self-publish. That's the next part of the journey, and that's how I've ended up here now.

Joanna: Just go into that bit more then because obviously working a couple of decades with the BBC—which if people don't know, as there's a lot of people in America, it's probably the most traditional of traditional media you could possibly imagine.

How did you break out of the opinion of the traditional media around self-publishing?

I mean, things have obviously changed since I self-published back in 2007, but how did you get around that?

Dave: Well, I mean, first of all, I would say people think of the BBC as this sort of very respectable giant monolith, but actually it's loads and loads of different quirky little places.

So it sounds great to say writing for the BBC, but a lot of that was writing for BBC Radio, which was about five people in a broom cupboard. Also children's TV, which is only three people in a smaller cupboard.

So the kind of pioneering way of the BBC is it's able to make things despite this sort of reputation as this very fusty corporation, rather than because of it. I think that's very much the kind of spirit that I found fairly straightforwardly, actually.

That's one of the things that was fairly easy to come to from being in the world of TV writing, was moving away from the BBC that's just full of people who just do it and do it for love. So from that point of view, it was a fairly straightforward move.

I think that the harder move was coming from being somebody who was a professional writer and was used to a process, that often ended up in rejection, but it was still a process anyway. So moving from that to a situation, the jungle, I suppose, of self-publishing, where it's free for all.

Joanna: Yes, and there are obviously pros and cons in that. I mean, you mentioned your previous writing, and one of the things you say in the book is that much of it was quite short, lyrics and shorter things.

What were the challenges in the craft of writing a full novel after very different creativity in the past?

Dave: Well, this probably sounds quite stupid, but it's actually true. The number of words, indeed, is quite a challenge because a single joke can be four words long.

There's a great comedian, Tim Vine, a British comedian, and he had a joke which went, “Velcro, what a rip off.” That's a joke he did that's four words long. So the idea is, oh, what do I do? Do I have to write 20,000 four-word jokes?

Obviously, the numbers thing is part of the issue. Like a half-hour sitcom is about 4000 words long. To develop a new idea for a sitcom and to write a pilot script for one, it's quite a lot of work.

It's almost not quite as much work as developing a novel, a whole novel, but it's months of playing with stuff and thinking of things. So the words was the first thing, but then the next problem was going to the other extreme.

It was like, aha! I can write as much as I want now. So you'd end up overwriting. The sky wasn't just blue, it was a pastel blue with the clouds breezing along. You go, oh, I can just do this. Whereas when you're writing a script, you just have to get straight to the point. “Character knocks on door, other character answers, straight into conversation.”

So, yes, one of the main things was overcompensating. That did lead me to another true fact, I think of whatever you're writing, in whatever form you're writing in, whether it's screenplays, novels, books, jokes, whatever, you have to keep cutting all the time. Cut, cut, cut.

You can always overwrite, and you always need to get to the point. I think just one other thing, the main other thing that I learned was you don't actually have to be funny all the time when you're writing a novel. I think that would just be too much. It'd be like banging the reader over the head with a plastic mallet.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. Oh, well, that's interesting. Well, let's come back to the comedy then. Why is comedy so important for writers, anyway? I mean, I write darker books, and some people tell me that they laugh in my books, and I certainly didn't intend it. Or specifically funny books, more like yours.

Why is laughter so important?

Dave: I mean, because the Bible tells us it is. You know the phrase, “laughter is the best medicine,” do you know where that's from?

Joanna: It's got to be from Proverbs or something.

Dave: That's correct. Yes, yes. With your background in theology, I thought you might get that. Yes, it's from Proverbs. Laughter is the best medicine, and people love laughter.

I grew up always loving comedy, listening to comedy on the radio. Also just the great thing was the whole family, we would all sit around the TV, and there were some great TV shows in Britain in the 1970s. We'd all sit around and watch Dad's Army and Reggie Perrin and Morecambe and Wise.

Comedy, it's just lovely. It brings people together, really.

Joanna: It's difficult though, isn't it? I mean, you talk there about sitting around together. I think maybe it's partly my family, but my brother is very funny and laughs a lot, and I laugh with him, but when we were kids, I would just be like, I don't even know why he's finding this funny, this is ridiculous.

People have different views of what is funny.

So how do we write a novel where you don't really have the delivery timing that you would in stand up. In stand up, you're reacting to the crowd, and you can do all that. Or like when I'm speaking professionally, I can see how things are landing.

With a novel, or with a short story or whatever, you can't see the audience's reaction. So how are you dealing with this individual sense of humour and broader appeal when you're writing a novel?

Dave: Well, the first thing, just before I answer that specific question, I would like to say this book that I've written now, How to Write a Funny Novel, is as much for me to learn by writing that down.

The first thing that became very clear to me was I needed to distinguish between what we might call a funny novel. Like, say, Bridget Jones books or PG Wodehouse, those are just funny novels that you sit and you laugh and you read them in a half a day or whatever.

Then there are also books that are written in genre, and you add humor to them. So you might think of something like, say, the Richard Osman Murder Mystery books. These are great books, but they're funny as well. Sophie Kinsella writes romance, but those books are very funny.

So there are two types of comedy in that sense. There is writing as a style, say, and writing as a genre. I think for you, as a writer, to find your funny.

Going for another old proverb. Sorry to go even further back, but we're with Socrates now. Socrates said, “Know thyself.” That's one of the key elements, I think.

When you come across a funny character, one of the key elements is they lack self-awareness.

If you want to write a funny character, you're going to need awareness of your own weaknesses and foibles.

I know in drama, and in fact, I know you've written a book about this, about discovering yourself and finding your dark side. In comedy, you don't quite need to go that far, but you need to find what I call “cringe corner”. You need to find those elements about yourself.

Like, how do you react to certain people? What irritates you? Why when you're standing in the queue in the post office and the woman in front of you is taking 20 minutes to buy a stamp, why are you getting so angry? What's the flaw in your character that's making you do this?

I've got an example in How to Write a Funny Novel of a story, a thing that happened to me in 1982. So this is going back to my early 20s.

I was involved in setting up a music festival, and I was handing out checks to people, not knowing that these checks were going to bounce the next day. I was potentially going to get into big trouble for this and go to jail, possibly.

Luckily, a couple of rock stars paid off the money, and the losses that the festival made were paid. After that time, I got very angry with the people who put me in that position, and I held this grudge.

I realized in 2022, 40 years later, I was still holding a grudge against these people from 1982. I think about it, and what was the point of that? What good was that doing anybody? I mean, it was certainly not me. I was arguing with this guy in my head, and he wasn't there to answer. He was just in my head.

I realized that this is just the most ridiculous thing that I'm holding onto this grudge. It actually became a very useful thing for me, not that particular story, but it became a useful thing for the second novel in my series, Barry Goldman, which is very loosely autobiographical.

I was able to bring all of the anger, 40 years of realization, where I was able to kind of put that into the book. It helped the character, I think.

Joanna: It's interesting, that kind of situational thing. You mentioned Richard Osman. I eventually picked up The Thursday Murder Club. I was like, oh, it's so popular because he's famous. In the UK he's a famous guy, and so it can't be good.

Then I just chortled my way through the whole thing. I've read all of them, pre-ordered them. I love that series.

You're right about the sort of ridiculousness. His main narrator, you know that they're in a retirement home, and his main narrator is just so funny. She's talking about what's going on, and gossiping, and it's all funny, even though she's not trying to be.

You just think, oh, that's just getting into that character. I mean, you mentioned there your Barry Goldman book.

How do we construct a character that readers will find funny, even though that character is not standing around telling jokes?

Dave: I think writing comedy, adding funny to a novel or writing a funny novel, is not a very different process from writing any other type of novel.

If you think about what you need when you're starting to come up with an idea for a novel, it's the same as what you need for anything, a drama, a movie or whatever. You've got these four principal elements that everybody has.

You have a character, or two characters, possibly. The character has a goal, and that's the second thing. Then there are obstacles in the way of that goal. Then the fourth thing is the world that these people inhabit. That's every single story ever written, 99.99% of stories, they are that.

A character goes on a journey. They've got a goal. Then they meet these obstacles, they fight them, they slay the dragon, whatever. So you start at that very general place, and there's just two crucial differences with a comedy character in that situation.

They still go on the same journey, and they've got the goals, and they've got the obstacles. The two differences are that when you get to the end of a drama, your character has been through hell, they've slain the dragon, whatever, they've saved the world, but they've also learnt something along the way.

They've had, a lovely Greek word, catharsis. They're a different person at the end compared to the beginning. In comedy, that doesn't happen. I mean, especially in sitcom, a character just comes back week in, week out to make the same mistakes because —

Comedy characters never learn.

It's true in novels as well. Even when they get to the end and they've solved the problem, they've got the girl or whatever, they still haven't quite changed. So that's number one.

The second thing, which is really the most crucial difference between characters in drama and comedy, is that in drama, we often talk about the protagonist is the main character and the antagonist is the enemy character.

More often than not, most times in comedy, the antagonist is the same person. So the obstacles are your obstacles. The flaws in your character have come due to this lack of self-awareness. So the biggest enemy to a comedy character is staring back at them in the mirror.

Joanna: That's so interesting that you say comedy characters never learn. They just keep coming back and making the same mistakes. My husband recently really got into the show Silicon Valley. Have you seen that?

Dave: I haven't, no, but I've heard lots of good things about that.

Joanna: You would understand it completely because I got annoyed. I mean, it's got like six seasons or something. I was like, “Look, I know exactly how these characters are going to react every time.” He's laughing away, and I laughed away a little bit, but then I was like, it's just the same every single episode.

Is it that the success of these types of shows, is it that people really want—They crave that same experience which means that the character can never learn?

Dave: Yes, I think there's a few things there. There's a sort of but for the grace of God go I that he's going to do that again.

If you think about the Charlie Brown, the Peanuts cartoon, there's this running gag that just never gets old. “Honestly, Charlie, I'm not going to take the ball away this time. I'm going to leave it there. You can kick the ball.” Of course, Lucy takes it away at the last moment. It's every time.

It's like yes, you can look at that from a logical point of view and say, well, he should just not try kicking the ball again, but that's the sort of thing that's part of the lack of self-awareness.

I can show that as a sort of optimism of a person. They just can't believe that anyone would be so mean that. They have such faith in humanity that they're going to keep trying to do this.

Every time, as a comedy writer, you have to find a new way of putting that character in a difficult situation.

There's a great British TV comedy writer, Dennis Norden. He described every joke as a momentary removal of a sympathy.

So when you see that person walk into a lamp post, or fall flat on their backside, or do the thing that they keep doing, you sort of laugh at them, but it's momentary because you kind of feel like, yeah, I know what that's like.

Joanna: I was thinking as you were talking, about Dilbert, the cartoon, and also The Office, the show that we had here in the UK and also in the US. Again, it's very normal situations, and we recognize the working culture.

It's funny because we recognize those characters. Those characters, you know, the bad manager, it's kind of a cliche, isn't it?

How do we avoid cliches in comedy?

Dave: Yes, that's a very good question. Nine times out of ten, or a lot of times, we don't. Again, it's the same as avoiding cliches in any form, really. Coming back to what I've already spoken about, in a sense you're bringing your self-awareness to some things.

So I cliches are actually very good at the starting point when you're creating a comedy show. Again, it also works with drama. What is this show about? It's about a fish out of water.

So, yes, I suppose the answer is that you put your cliches into the theme of what something's about. Cliches are cliches because they are shortcuts to truth. So everybody gets that straight away.

Someone like Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he's a fish out of water. He's out of his depth. So you've got a story that's as original and startling as the Hitchhiker's Guide, but you've still got these kind of comedy characters. So it's the places that you put your characters in.

Yes, they're doing the same things over and over, but you avoid cliche because you keep coming back to the character, as I keep doing talking to you now.

Joanna: Yes, it's very interesting. So your Barry Goldman books, you mentioned they're loosely autobiographical and that they are about a stand-up comedian and how his life developed. So was that what came to you when you wanted to write the novel?

I mean, that's obviously a very different approach to the Richard Osman Thursday Murder Club, a load of retirees in a retirement home.

Did you feel like there was just too much comedy in your own life not to put that on the page?

Dave: Well, yes, and I partly put that down to my lack of experience. Again, this is quite a common thing that I find with people when they're starting out. The first thing that people often want to write in comedy is their story.

The reason for this is quite valid because the two pieces of advice you hear over and over again for writers are, number one is write what you know. Number two is write in your own voice.

These are phrases that are banded about, but they need some careful examination, because just because this thing happened to you, doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be the best person to write about it.

I think writing what you don't know is as important, that you're finding out stuff. When you find out new stuff, you don't know a huge amount, but you know just enough more than the person who's going to read your book to be like one step ahead of them.

So the next point is about writing in your voice. Well, this is my story, so it's going to be my voice. Again, I don't think that's really what one's voice is. I think you find your voice just by writing and trying new things all the time.

It's also the sum of everything that you've ever done up to the point that you start writing. So I think —

It's more important to give yourself permission to lie.

I think now, I'm just writing book three, the last in the Barry Goldman trilogy, and compared to the first one, it's just there's nothing in book three that's really autobiographical. Little episodes here or there, but the first book was much more about me.

I think that was just me writing, getting that first novel out of the way so that I could become a novelist. I think a piece of advice I give to people is, if you're thinking, “I'm going to write my story, that's my first novel,” maybe just park that for a moment and maybe just try and come up with a different thing.

You won't be so emotionally attached to it, and you might be able to look at the bigger picture, rather than be kind of stuck inside it.

Joanna: It'll be interesting to see where you go. I was thinking then of David Baddiel, who was originally very much a comedy writer. Then over the years—I mean, obviously he still does some comedy—but over the years, his books have become very serious and tackling some really big topics.

He's really changed as a writer over the decades that I've certainly been reading him. I think that's important too, isn't it? It's not like you're necessarily only ever going to write comedy books.

I think your covers, for example, the cover branding makes it very clear what kind of book people can expect.

Dave: Yes, I think that's true. I mean, I've been writing for 40 odd years now. David's been writing for almost as long, probably 30 years.

In fact, it's a sort of parallel almost, in that I was doing stand-up before him, and I was the Jewish comedy stand up at that time. Then as I stopped, he took over, and that became his role. Then he went on, and he did a lot of this stuff about football and things. Each new project brings new things, and we get old, and we have different experiences.

So I think there is a bit of a problem with writing comedy, writing a comic novel. I do listen to a lot of podcasts about self-publishing, and people do attach a lot of importance to the cover.

It's fine if you're writing, like Richard Osman, you're writing a murder mystery. You look at the cover of Richard Osman's book, and it looks like all the other covers of all the murder mysteries. It just happens to be funny as well.

Likewise, you look at Emily Henry, an American romance novelist, you look at her covers, and they're very similar to the sorts of covers of romance novels, but hers happened to be funny as well.

A comic novel, I mean, I can't make a cover that's like Bridget Jones because it's not a romance. Or I can't do a cover like Hitchhiker's Guide, it's not science fiction.

So yes, I did try with the novels to get something that conveys humor without having the luxury of being able to say, “Oh, and you'll find it in this shelf in the library or at the bookshop.”

Joanna: No, it is difficult. As you say, it's more of a crossover in terms of where it fits. I understand the difficulty in marketing that.

I did also just want to touch on something that a lot of people are very scared about in this culture, this sort of cancel culture outrage. There are certainly some comics on Netflix, and right now as we're recording, the Edinburgh Festival.

People get offended, and they can put bad reviews, or they can tear people down on social media. I was thinking even how publishers have rewritten Roald Dahl, which was my childhood comedy, and how dated things are.

I was thinking about Benny Hill. I mean, you could not have a Benny Hill film on TV anymore. I mean, it's just really offensive.

How do we tackle fear of cancel culture with humor?

Because it often does skirt the line of what's accessible.

Dave: I will answer that with regard to the specifics of the moment, and cancel culture and all these handy words of the moment. But I would like to go to a more important point which I think obscures this, which I think a lot of people fear writing comedy.

Interestingly, I find when people come to me as writers wanting to do stuff, it's almost invariably women, because men just think, “Oh, I'm going to write comedy,” and that's how it is. Women will write to me and say, “I want to write comedy, but I'm not sure that I'm funny enough.”

Actually, there is this sort of problem that people are worried that, like you say, you'll get a bad review or whatever, and that does happen. Also, it is true that comedy, unlike drama, it's like you were saying with your husband, he's laughing there, and you're getting annoyed.

If you watch a drama and you don't like it, you just go, “Oh, I didn't like that.” You watch a comedy show and you don't like it, you get really angry. “How could they think that's funny?” Like you were saying earlier, “I don't find that funny. How can anyone else find it funny?”

So you will get that, I'm afraid, but actually, people need to overcome that fear. The worst thing with comedy, and I certainly found this with my first novel, is indifference, much more than hostility people.

You might think, “Oh, I'm a bit worried someone might take offense at this.” Well, just be grateful that someone's even actually got around to reading it. So that's the first thing I would say about that.

So yes, you do have to have a little bit of a thick skin, I think, to be able to do comedy. If you think you're funny, just try it and send it out to people and see what people say.

Someone will find it funny, not everyone. So the people who don't find it funny say, “Oh, I didn't find that funny,” but some people will. So that's something that I really would encourage people because it is definitely something that does frustrate me sometimes.

I'll see very good, very funny writers who are held back by that thing of, well, some people won't find it funny, and I'm a bit nervous about putting it out there. Well, that's fine. That's part of being a writer is being nervous about what you put out there. I think that is just much more important.

I think it's quite hard to get canceled nowadays. I wouldn't worry about that. Certainly, Roald Dahl and Benny Hill, they're not around to worry about it anymore. That's somebody else's problem, not your problem.

Just write what you can and write what you want to. Write because you love writing and you want to be a better writer.

That always, for me, is the number one key thing.

Joanna: It's interesting thinking about dated language. It doesn't relate to getting canceled, but when I rewrote my first novel, Stone of Fire, after more than a decade, I found conversation in there that I just would not write any more. There were terms that have really dated in terms of just technology and stuff.

I rewrote those and was very happy that as a self-published author, you can just rewrite and upload new files. That is a possibility.

Dave: Yes, it's interesting because that's been something that I've had to revisit. The first song that I wrote for Horrible Histories was a song about the four King Georges, Georges I, II, III, and IV.

It's still a very popular song, and people go to that song, but there are lines in that song that there's no way that I would write lines like that now. That was only 2008, so it's not like it was eons away.

I think there have definitely been very big changes in language, and I think if you are able to go back—and this is one of the great things, as you say, about self-publishing.

In fact, there were a couple of things in the first Barry book that after I published it the first time, somebody read a couple of things and said, oh, that's a bit dodgy. Even though it was from a sympathetic point of view, it still potentially came across as something that people might be upset by.

So I was able to, like you say, just go into the document, change it, and put it back again in 72 hours, rather than eight months or whatever.

Joanna: I was just thinking there, I think Dickens republished one of his stories after some feedback for something that was taken as much more offensive. So I think this is not a new thing, people changing what they've written. I hope what you've said helps people just put stuff out there.

I like that you mentioned obscurity because this is so true. When we see comics canceled or people taken down on social media, they are often very famous. The reality is—

Most of us put our books out and nobody even notices.

Dave: I mean, an interesting one is, I mean, there's a couple of comedians, notably Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle, who their job, they think, is to offend. They do that job really well.

People get offended, and they say, “Look at what Ricky Gervais has just done.” The algorithm, which doesn't understand divisiveness or woke cancer culture, says, “Oh, twice as many people are telling me to show this Ricky Gervais thing. This must be really popular.”

So for people like Ricky Gervais and other people, it actually helps them because the algorithm doesn't do that politics. It's just the algorithm.

Joanna: It is interesting. I mean, there'll be people who have different attitudes listening, and I think that's where I was coming from in terms of the question around comedy, because obviously Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are really extreme on some of these things.

I've got to admit, like on the Netflix specials for both of them, I did go and have a look because they got so much flack. I was like, how? Then, of course, some of it really is offensive, but much of it was very, very funny.

I think that's the other thing, isn't it? It's almost like, can we laugh at some things and not others? That's partly what humor is.

There is such a fine line between funny and offensive.

Dave: To come back to your Dickens example. The example I know, which might be the one you're thinking of, is certainly when Oliver Twist came out. A lot of people complained about Fagin being an antisemitic character.

Dickens' response in the next book, I think it's Our Mutual Friend, he has this character called Mr. Riah, who's this nice, lovely Jewish man. It's almost like, I wish you just apologized for Fagan and moved on.

This character was almost like an over compensation. “Mr. Riah is a lovely man. He has kindly eyes. He's a generous money lender. He's wonderful person.” You just think, ah, come on, Dickens. This isn't a Dickensian character.

Joanna: Oh, being a writer has always been a struggle, for sure.

Now, we're almost out of time, but I wanted to come to one of your other short books called Ready Steady, Joke!: Why Hard Times are the Best Times to Build Your Writing Career?

I love that attitude. So obviously you mentioned COVID before, which was very tough for live performances, but there are always challenges and always difficulties.

What are some of your tips for finding opportunities and keeping a positive mindset?

Dave: Well, I mean, the first thing that I would say in terms of keeping a positive mindset is this thing of doing it because you want to do it, because you want to become a better writer.

Try not to think that I am going to write the great comic novel of the 21st century, whatever. Just think, I want to get better. I love writing. I love comedy. I want to get better for the sake of it.

To get in TV and radio, and it's got harder over the years, just as it's got harder in every section of TV and movies and whatever. It's just harder and harder to sell stuff nowadays.

There are actual ways into British and American TV. If you can write jokes, and some people can do it instinctively, but you can learn how to write jokes. You can learn how to write topical jokes. You've got these shows on US TV, daily shows, and then you've got topical shows on the BBC in Britain as well.

These shows just eat up loads and loads and loads of material. They're always looking for new writers. If you can get a credit on a show like that, and you start to get to know TV producers and people.

I think just networking is a good thing to do because you find out what else is going on in the world of TV and radio. You might meet another producer who likes your sense of humor. Again, coming back to how humor is subjective.

You know, you meet a producer who's on your humor wavelength, and they'll try and get your projects made. So that's getting to know people within that industry.

It's harder in books because the publishing world is more of a closed shop, but within self-publishing, there's a great community. Getting to know other people in the community is an important thing.

The other thing I'd say is people often say, if you want to know how to write a novel, you should learn to write short stories. It is good advice, I think, but if you want to write comedy, it's worth trying to learn how to write comedy sketches.

Like sort of two or three minute self-contained sketches like they have on Saturday Night Live, like Key & Peele. In Britain, shows like Little Britain. Big Train was a great show. Sketches are great because—

Sketches are to sitcom, what the short story is to the novel.

It's like a single chapter that's a self-contained story, and it uses all the elements that you will use in your writing your novel.

It uses character, world, goal, objects, dialogue, twists and punch line, whatever the punch line might be. So that's a really good thing to do. Don't just think, oh, I'm going to do this now. Just plan long term, think about the future. Above all, try to become a better writer.

Joanna: I was thinking then of the comedic aspects within self-publishing as well. Just trying to keep a positive mindset around some of the challenges we have. Not just the writing side, obviously the publishing, and the marketing, and the changes going on. I mean, it's a sitcom all of its own, isn't it?

Dave: Yes. I mean, without the laughs, I've been finding.

Joanna: Oh, I don't know. In terms of cliches, I know you were at London Book Fair this year, and I've been going to London Book Fair for a decade. Obviously missed the COVID years when it wasn't on, but I go to London Book Fair, and I can just see the cliches coming.

I think having a positive attitude wherever you are in your writing journey can be super helpful.

Laughing with other author friends is often the antidote, perhaps.

Dave: Yes, and I just want to say before we go, the difference between being in the world of like constant rejection of writing for TV and stuff, and then the world where anybody can do anything of self-publishing, yes, it's a bit scary.

But from a positive point of view, I do think that self-publishing—and I'm not just saying this, Jo—but I think your podcast, in particular, is just a fantastic resource. There's just so much. I think I've learned more from listening to your show about how to really be a novelist.

It doesn't end once you type “the end.” That's just the beginning, really. You need to be out there and to be marketing. You don't have all the sort of machine of the industry behind you, but you have control over your own work. That's just a really energizing thing, I find.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online?

Dave: Well, I've just started a new podcast. I used to do a podcast called Sitcom Geeks, and so the clue was in the title. We did about 200 episodes, but we stopped because nobody was making sitcoms anymore, and also we were doing other things.

I've now got a more general podcast called A Write Funny Podcast, as in W-R-I-T-E. Then the book How to Write a Funny Novel will be out end of September. You can find out all about these things at my website, which is DaveCohen.org.uk.

Joanna: Well, thanks so much for your time, Dave. That was great.

Dave: Thank you very much for having me.

The post How To Make Readers Laugh. Writing Humour With Dave Cohen first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you be successful at connecting with readers and selling books at live, in-person events? What are some practical tips as well as mindset shifts that can help you make the most of the opportunities? Mark Leslie Lefebvre shares his experience.

In the intro, Beventi for author events, Reader survey results [Written Word Media]; “How do I market myself without feeling gross about it?” [Author Stack]; 12 Concepts for Authors to Make $8333/Month; Results of AI training survey [Draft2Digital]; LionsGate partnering with RunWayML; Networking workshop [LSF]; Blood Vintage.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Mark Leslie LeFebvre is the author of horror and paranormal fiction, as well as nonfiction books for authors. He's also an editor, professional speaker, and the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital. His latest book is A Book in Hand: Strategies for Optimizing Print Book Sales via Signings and Other In Person Events.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• What does “going wide” really mean?
• Benefits of in-person signings and events
• Always connect. The power of creating personal relationships with readers
• The different types of in-person events
• Using props to attract the right readers to your booth
• How to grow your email list and audience from in-person events
• The logistics of in-person events — payment systems and inventory
• Managing your energy when planning for and attending events
• Staying relaxed about changing technology and using it to your advantage

You can find Mark at MarkLeslie.ca.

Transcript of Interview with Mark Leslie LeFebvre

Joanna: Mark Leslie LeFebvre is the author of horror and paranormal fiction, as well as nonfiction books for authors. He's also an editor, professional speaker, and the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital.

His latest book is A Book in Hand: Strategies for Optimizing Print Book Sales via Signings and Other In Person Events. So welcome back to the show, Mark.

Mark: Always great to chat with you, Joanna.

Joanna: Oh, yes. Obviously many listeners might know you from author events or listen to your podcast, Stark Reflections. So you were last on the show in September 2021.

Mark: Has it been that long?

Joanna: Yes, it has been, which is crazy. You've been on the show lots over the years. We co-wrote The Relaxed Author together, and we're going to come back to that later. So it's been almost three years since you've been on the show—

Give us a bit of an update on your writing and publishing journey, as you've had some big milestones lately.

Mark: So I've continued to write in my Canadian Werewolf series. Book seven, Only Monsters in the Building, that was released earlier this year, 2024. I've got book eight planned for mid-2025.

So that's been fun because in 2021, I think, I had only had two or three books in that series. So I've continued to chug away at that. Only one book a year, just sort of standard speed.

I did release a co-authored book with D.F. Hart, Accounting for Authors, which is important because she's an MBA. That was a great co-authoring experience because she's really smart and knows everything about that. I took the role of the author who knows nothing about finances. That is kind of close to the truth, so it was an easy role to fill.

Then also, with D.F. Hart and Erin Wright and Susie O'Connell and Bradley Charbonneau—

We registered and founded a company, Wide for the Win.

It is like a long, slow build for this company. All of us are working collaboratively together, trying to leverage that movement into something that could help more authors in different ways. So that's like this long, slow thing where the company's not really earning money yet, it's breaking even, but we have these plans.

I mean, for example, sales of my book Wide for the Win, a portion of the sales goes and funds into the company, which is kind of good.

So other things I've been up to is I've written two movie trivia books. This is drawn upon my love of 80s films and nostalgia. So I had The Canadian Mounted, which is a trivia guide to planes, trains and automobiles, because it's a reference to a book that one of the characters is reading in it.

That took off beyond my wildest dreams. I thought 15-20 people in the world would buy it, and I wrote it completely as a passion project, and it just keeps shooting. It's been out for a few years now, and every Thanksgiving season through Christmas, it sells like gangbusters. Then I did a trivia book of Die Hard called Yippee Ki-Yay, you know the rest. So that came out.

Then this December, I'm working on a book, which is Merry Christmas! which is a line cousin Eddie uses in Christmas Vacation. Again, that's going to be like the 35th anniversary of the release of that movie. So that's been a weird tangent.

Of course, I then attended Western Colorado University's Masters of Creative Writing Program taught by our mutual friend Kevin J. Anderson. I got my specialisation in publishing. Why not get a piece of paper to go with the 35 years of experience?

Then three days after I got my degree, Liz and I flew from Colorado, where I was on campus, to New York City. We got married there on the 10th anniversary of our first date.

That, ironically, was inspired not only by the fact that that's our city, we love New York City so much. We've been there about eight times in a six-year period. It was inspired by a co-authored book in my Canadian Werewolf series called Lover's Moon, which is a romantic comedy tale.

There's a scene that takes place in Central Park on the Bow Bridge, the bridge where people tend to propose. After we finished writing that, I turned to Liz, and I said, “You know, we could just elope and go to New York and get married in Central Park.” So we did that, which is fun.

Then, of course, I've got A Book in Hand coming out. So that's the Reader's Digest version. Could you imagine if I did the long version?

Joanna: Can we also say that you work at Draft2Digital. So you also have a day job!

Mark: Yes. Well, I mean, that's only 20 hours a week.

Joanna: It's a part time day job, but still. Just coming back on the Wide for the Win, because just for people who might not know, basically the idea is that you're not exclusive to Amazon.

It's interesting, when I say wide now, I actually mean Kickstarter and Shopify stores. Like it used to just mean Kobo Writing Life and Apple and Google and stuff like that.

Now publishing wide is much, much bigger than just the other e-retailers isn't it?

Mark: Yes, and my version of wide has always been that. I've always thought, okay, the other retailers are just the beginning. Direct sales, Kickstarters, Patreon, and all the different things you can do, there are so many other platforms, so many other ways of selling.

I really want to help authors understand the ability to extend and expand to audiences outside of the regular places. That's partly what A Book in Hand is trying to get into.

I'm focusing very specifically on physical products because I think a lot of indie authors don't.

I think you and I both know the value of that physical artifact. Even though it's harder and it takes more work, there can be a long-term benefit.

So yes, wide to the other retailers is a small version of wide. My wide means every possible avenue, as a creator and as a storyteller.

Joanna: Yes, I really like that. I actually think that the shift is happening. It's great that you've set that company up with the others because I feel like maybe we're in year one or two of that being the movement.

I mean the movement in the first 15 years, really since you and I met, before 2010, was very much focused on the Amazon model first. Even though there were other retailers, obviously, you were at Kobo back then when we met.

Now I feel like there's a real shift, and people are opening up to that. So I think starting the company now, whatever you're planning to do, really is the right time because people are realizing they need to do all this stuff.

Not just for the money, but also for the creative expression, and the experience, and the other possibilities of being out there.

Mark: For sure. Again, education and making sure people are getting good information was the key thing that we all cared about. Not just sharing the passion for doing all the things you can do, multiple streams of income and all those things, but also helping steer people in the right direction.

There's a lot of misinformation out there, and we wanted to get a little bit better at formulizing trying to help authors.

Joanna: Great. Well, we'll look forward to that. So let's get into the book. So it is mainly about in-person signings and in-person events. I wanted to talk to you about this because I resist this completely.

I have, like you know, the only signed books I've done are my Kickstarters so far. I really love them, but I go up, I sign all the books, and they get sent out. I have never done a book signing.

I don't do fairs or conventions or any of that. If I go speak somewhere, I don't take books with me. So people have to bring their own copy and I'll sign them, which, you know, I've done for people. Basically, I want you to start by convincing me and some of the listeners—

Why should we do these types of in-person signings and events? What are the benefits?

Mark: I'm going to first start off, Jo, with saying, I may not convince you to do the in-person events because you're already leveraging the principles behind A Book in Hand by doing what you do.

You go to BookVault, you sign the Kickstarter, and you have the benefit of that relationship with the people without having to sit there at a bookstore.

Let's go back to the concept in general. It's derived from something that you've often said, as things move and progress in this industry, doubling down on you and your authentic self is key, and that's at the basis of this.

Especially in a tech-heavy and high tech digital world, especially with AI-charged content that can surpass even those rapid release people—like that's coming, we'll probably talk about that in a bit—it's the connections that people crave.

Connections are the most fundamental reason for storytelling and for writing and books.

There's so many readers out there who want a connection with the writer.

Now you, with what you've done with your magnificent Kickstarters and signing the books, it's like if I want a signed copy of Joanna's book, this is the way I get it. You've done that in a way that's very comfortable for you, and I love that. I think that's amazing, and that is still part of that mandate.

Sometimes an in-person event, when somebody connects with you—and I'm sure you've experienced this numerous times, people are fans, and they've heard you.

For example, I was talking to someone at a conference in Calgary who's a huge fan of yours, like I am, and they're so jealous of the fact that I talk to you, get to hang out with you, and stuff like that. When they meet you, it's a real experience, and not just because of what you've done for authors.

Liz, for example, she's pretty much read most of your Morgan Sierra novels and loves them. So there's this whole cool experience of “Jo's really sweet and lovely and optimistic, and yet, look at all the stuff she writes.”

Joanna: You are the same, by the way. People should read your fiction!

Mark: Same thing, and people marvel at that. It's like, really, you wrote that? I'm just like, yeah, that's why it's therapy. That's why I'm okay as a person. I get it out in my writing.

It brings the reader something well beyond just the words on a page. It gives them an experience.

So you're creating a unique and dynamic experience for the reader that they may cherish. Maybe it's posing while you signed a book for them, maybe it's something else in person.

So I'll give you a couple examples. At one of the events I did a couple years ago at Frightmare In The Falls in Niagara Falls, Canada, I had somebody who had bought my hardcovers online, probably Amazon or some other store, and came in a werewolf costume to Frightmare In The Falls just to meet me and get my book signed.

Of course, I took a picture with him. I didn't sell anything to him at that event, and it cost me a lot of money to be at that event. I did make my money back and a little bit more from that event.

Me being there with somebody who loved my books so much that they show up in a costume with my books just so I can sign, that experience hopefully gave this fan something really cool that he can share with other people.

Another thing I've done, there's a brewery in Hamilton, Ontario, and one summer, eight of the ten of those weeks of the summer, I was there on Saturday. It cost me $25 to have a little booth and sell books, and I was the only book vendor there.

There was one gentleman I had handed a card, it had a coupon code for Kobo and the book cover of one of my thrillers, Evasion. So he was looking around, and he recognized my name because I'd edited a science fiction anthology by a small Canadian publisher years earlier. He's like, “Oh, I think I have one of your books.”

I gave him a card, and I said, “Here, go inside. There's free Wi Fi,” he's going to go in and have a beer, “Check it out for free.” He comes back 45 minutes later, and he goes, “Do you have that book?” I said, “Yes, well, I just gave it to you. I just gave you the ebook.”

He said, “No, no, I want the physical book. Can you sign it for me? I'm really enjoying it. I want to own it.”

Since then, this one in-person experience of just chatting and not trying to oversell someone, it's turned into a lifelong fan who buys every single one of my books and leaves reviews for them too.

That personal relationship with a reader is one of the more powerful things you can do.

Joanna: Yes, it is, and I am convinced of that.

Even you and I, we've met at events over the years, and because we meet in person, I mean we talk like this sometimes, but because we meet in person, we have more of a relationship, and we've done business together.

So I think that, even if it's not just the readers.

Say you're at a convention and no reader even buys a book, you're still you can still connect with other creators who are there, and learn a lot from them, and maybe meet some of the people you're fans of, and stuff like that. So why don't you just—

What are the different types of in-person events and what kinds of authors do they suit?

Because there are so many different things, aren't there?

Mark: So for example, I mean, the most common one authors often think of is a lonely author in the front of a bookstore in a mall, right, sitting at a table.

Joanna: Don't do that!

Mark: Well, I mean, there are situations where it may be okay for you to do that. Some authors it's good for, and others it's not.

So that's one, for example, that you've got specialty shops. So shops that are specialty, because I write horror, and I write scary stuff, and I have true ghost stories and things like that, specialty shops.

I was at a gem location this summer at a metaphysical fair festival, so people interested in metaphysical and paranormal and stuff like that. So that's a good fit.

There are friends of mine who write epic fantasy, and they do a lot of medieval fairs, sometimes dressed up as knights and stuff like that.

I think going to book adjacent events could be even more important.

So for example, I talked about the brewery, I was the only book vendor there. So a couple things happen when you're the only book vendor there. Not everyone reads, right? Like one in four Americans have read a book since high school, I'd say maybe even fewer than one in four.

The book nerds, the book fans, really recognize when there's a book anywhere. When I see books and beer, I'm just excited about either one of them. So anytime it has anything to do with beer or books, I'm just all over it like a cheap suit.

So if you're the only book vendor there, the book people are probably going to come to you, which can be beneficial. Now, depending on the genres you write, maybe the books are not for them, but that doesn't mean that you still haven't made an impression on them.

The challenge with in person events is you can't do cost per click measures.

It's so hard to do that. With online ads and stuff like that, you can kind of see how many people looked at it, how many people clicked, how many sales that translated into.

With some of these things, it's this long-term touch event. So for example, one of the events I was at, which was another brewery, I had somebody approach me who said, “Mark Leslie, I know your name,” and it goes back to a podcast I was on 10 years earlier that's no longer on the air.

It's like one of these things that I couldn't measure the fact that doing this podcast 10 years earlier was going to result in a book sale from somebody who walks by and sees my book. Had I not been there in person, she wouldn't have seen my book.

There's so many different local fairs, craft fairs, markets, pop up fairs, and, like I said, book adjacent specialty shops. Even coffee shops, breweries, and places like that. You're limited by your imagination, right?

Like when you want to go wide, think about going wide with physical books. Not necessarily just sitting and planting yourself in front of a bookstore and hope somebody takes pity on you and buys one of your books from you.

Joanna: I think you're right. I mean, of course some people want to do signings in bookstores, but as you said, actually—

The book adjacent events can be much better, as long as you can find some overlap.

I was thinking, there's a lot of Christmas fairs as this goes out, I mean, towards the end of the year, land you'll be next to people who've made knitted things or have some food things and wine and stuff. So that, to me, is a kind of book adjacent event to consider.

I think one of the things that puts me off is, like you did mention there, you can't do cost per click. You can't necessarily do an ROI.

If you spend a couple of $100 to get a store, and then you spend a couple of thousand to print enough books to make the day worthwhile, like if it gets sold. Then you have to get them there, and then maybe you have to drive there. There's just all kinds of things that make me worry about it.

What are your tips for making the event successful, in terms of preparation and then also on the day?

Mark: So there's a few things that can be helpful. I guess it depends on how many books you have.

I know this sounds weird and odd, but having one or two books is so much easier than having a lot of books because one of the challenges is determining what I'm going to take.

Now, I do a lot of events now. For example, this week, I did one this past Sunday, I have an event Thursday night, an outdoor event in Uptown Waterloo. Then I'm driving almost two hours to Ontario's west coast, just south of Goderich, to do an open air book festival on Saturday.

I have stock of a lot of my books. I have a room dedicated in my basement, because we live in a big enough house, that is my shipping, receiving, and stock room. It's where I have all my books laid out on shelves so I can track and I can see.

I use local printers. I use Amazon. I use Ingram. I use various ways to get these different books in stock.

It is expensive, having 10 of this, and 10 of that, and 10 of the other.

Then with my traditionally published books, I order from a local bookstore. They give me a discount, and I support a local business. It goes through their register, and also a year later, I'll get like chump change royalties from the publisher on it. I make more margin on the ones I'm planning to resell anyway.

So tips for making the event successful I think are, obviously, you're going to want to share that on social media. You're going to want to put it out in your author newsletter. All the ways that you let your fans know.

Again, no, I don't necessarily know where all my fans are because I don't have those demographics from where they are, if they're local or nearby. So no matter where I go, I try to let them know, “Hey, I'm going to be here. I'm going to be in South Dakota in September, South Dakota Book Festival.”

I'm going to send it out my newsletter because maybe there's somebody in my newsletter who lives there. I've had people show up at events saying, “Hey, I got your newsletter last week that said you're going to be here, so I made a point. It was an hour drive. I came to see you.” So that's really important.

I think having merchandise props, some sort of setting part based on your brand of who you are as an author in the book or the books that you write, that can work. For example, I have Barnaby Bones. I have my skeleton.

Usually the skeleton either tells people stay away from the crazy bald man, or they come running over because that's their jam. Like skeletons, yay. Love it.

I also have a sign that I hang there, it's like a bat shaped sign that says, “Ghost stories told here.” It's a great icebreaker. People will come over and say, “Well, you tell ghost stories. Well, tell me a ghost story.”

Then I say, “Well, first of all, because this is an important thing, I'm not just going to tell you any ghost story. I want to find out what kind of ghost stories you like because I have thousands.”

One of the more important things is not necessarily selling — it's engaging.

So one of the other things is props. Even having access through our good friend Damon and Bookfunnel print cards. I have cards. I have ebooks.

Some people may say, “Well, I'd rather just get the ebooks.” Well, I have the whole Canadian Werewolf series here in ebook in the little oversized postcards that I print from Vistaprint with a cover on it. I can sign with a marker on the front, there's room on the back to sign, but then there's also that special code.

So I can do one of a combination of things. I could give something away if I feel like, “Hey, check this out.” If they really like it, then maybe they'll come back and they'll buy the series wherever they buy ebooks, or they'll get them from the library.

So I can sell the ebooks that way. I can sell the audiobooks that way. I can even add them as somebody who buys the whole series. Like here, download the eBooks for free. So you can have these signed copies and then listen to the book.

So I think having physical merchandise is tricky, but very expensive, of course, and again, something that will draw the right fans to your table. If you write cat mysteries, you better have some cat stuff.

With the master's program, we just released a book called Feisty Felines and Other Fantastical Familiars. I remember having the book at a fair earlier this summer, even just before the book officially launched, Kevin said it was okay for us to put those author copies out and start getting people excited.

I mean, I had people running over when they saw the black cat on the front because you can see it from far away. They came over because there was a cat on it, and they were all over it. They were all over it and loved it. So that was a really exciting thing. So again, you never know what's going to catch someone's eye.

Joanna: It's a good point.

You've mentioned a couple of times not to be too salesy. Don't do the hard sell.

I remember, it was one ThrillerFest in New York. ThrillerFest has a big book sales room, and people do signings in there. I mean, it is an event for authors, so everyone there is an author.

If you go, they can stock your books in the main thing. I remember going in there, and of course, everyone wants to buy books, but I remember going in there and this guy just came up to me, holding his book, and said, “Do you want to buy this?”

Obviously, my first reaction is, no, I don't want to buy this, but because I'm English, I'm very polite. I was like, “Oh, that looks very interesting.”

Then, of course, you've reached out a hand, Then you're holding the book, and he's done what people on the street do, you know, with little things where they give it to you, and once they've given it to you, and then you're like, oh, no, now I have to buy it. I still remember him. This is like a decade ago.

I still remember him being someone I did not want to buy his book. I don't think I did buy it in the end, but I was annoyed that he was even taking the time in my head when I wanted to be looking for books I actually wanted. So that's like an example of definitely do not do.

What are some of the other big mistakes you see newbies make with these in-person events?

Mark: Well, I want to double down on what you just said to make sure that your listeners pick up on this. The difference between making one sale—like he was very forceful, and put putting a book in your hand that you were not interested in.

That was an anxious, uncomfortable moment that still lives with you. He made the worst possible—well, one of the worst possible impressions, there could have been worse things—but he made a really bad impression. It's still with you.

You'll probably never buy anything from that author because of that bad experience. So I would rather not make a sale now, but have a potential long-term relationship or long-term interactions with somebody.

I think too many authors try so hard to get the sale now, because I paid for my table, and I want to make my money back, or my flight, or whatever it cost me to get here. They're so fixated on that that they miss out on: is this the right person for the book? Is this the right reader? That should be their focus.

So we talked about overspending, with the merchandise, and by printing too much stock and stuff like that. I think —

Focusing on a legitimate and genuine connection with the right person is way more important.

That includes—and you mentioned this earlier, and it's so important—talking to the other authors, talking to the other vendors, getting to know the staff wherever it is that you happen to be. You never know who might be or might know someone who's going to be your ideal reader.

So it's not always be closing, it's always be connecting. So, for example, if I was in that gentleman's shoes, and you walk by—and probably not you because you do like dark things—but I'm standing there, and somebody comes by, and says, “Oh, what do you have there?”

I'll be like, “Well, then do you like horror?” Then they're like, “No, I'm more of a romance reader.”

I'm like, “Oh, well, I don't really have anything for you. Well, I sort of have one book, but not really your cup of tea. But you know what? My friend Bella, just down there, you've got to check out her Sullivans Series. It is absolutely amazing.”

“If you like thrillers with some action and adventure, Marie Force has a fantastic series, The Fatal Series. You're going to love that.” So get to know who else is there and what they have.

If somebody comes up to you and asks for something and you don't have what they want, don't waste their time trying to sell them something and fit the square peg in the round hole.

Try to help them find what they're looking for.

As a bookseller, I did this when I was managing a bookstore. People would come to my bookstore in the mall to ask non-book-related questions because they knew I would do everything I could to help them. They liked me and they trusted me, and people buy things from people they know, like, and trust.

So they would come to the mall and say, “Oh, I'm looking for a really great hardware store,” or something like that, “I figured you'd recommend something.” It has nothing to do with books, and I would help them.

Guess what? The next time they needed a book, guess who they were going to refer their friends to or come to.

Joanna: Or buy a gift. I mean, that's the other thing, isn't it? Like a lot of people are buying gifts at these things. It doesn't have to be for themselves. Then oftentimes it's like, “Oh, well, I like that guy. I'll go back and buy a gift from him,” or whatever.

Mark: They had a good experience. So imagine that person came by and they said, “I've got this book. It's this genre that you're not interested in,” and you just had a nice, short conversation, and he wasn't pushy and didn't try to force it on you.

Then you remembered, oh, that was an interesting book, and then you're talking to someone in a coffee shop later on when you're in line, and they're like, “Oh, I really like this.”

Then you're like, “Oh, there's a guy, he's just around the corner by the red pillar. Look for him. I bet you his book would be good for you.” You never know.

Again, the biggest challenge, especially with indie authors who grew up trained digitally, on ebooks and cost per click and all that, you can't measure that. That's probably the most frustrating aspect.

Joanna: You said there about thinking about the other person, and you also have to think about the kind of event. Also, not giving people too much choice. So both you and I have a lot of books, and it's expensive to print everything. Also, if I take every single one of my books, people are like, ‘oh, too much choice.'

There's all those studies, aren't there, that if you give people three different jams, for example, they're more likely to buy one than if you have 20 different jams. So you have to really think about what event it is.

I was actually just thinking then, because I am considering doing a Christmas market here in Bath, and I was like, well, which books would I take? Then I remembered, my mum has a book called A Summerfield Christmas Wedding.

Mark: Perfect.

Joanna: I'm like, well, of course, I would take my mum's book. Then I'd have maybe my thrillers and some non-fiction, just one of each or two of each. Then I have my mum's Christmas book, and maybe that would be the one that sold a ton.

Mark: Well, that's the primary display, but then somebody's like, “Oh, I love Christmas stuff, but I have a friend who loves archeological thrillers,” or whatever, because you've got so many different things now.

That's the other thing is, maybe just feature the first book in the series and then have the other ones kind of subtly off to the side, but not as visible until someone really gets into it. That's the other trick.

Joanna: Or even just the first one in each series. Then in talking to people, you can say, “Well, look, I have an email list. I can send you the details of the other books.”

I was going to ask you about this. So I'm kind of trained on very much the anti-spam thing, so I have never added someone to my email list manually. When I hear from people like yourself who do live events—

Do you keep a manual email list and add people to it live?

So how do you deal with that?

Mark: I stopped doing that. I used to have a clipboard, and one of the problems with the clipboard is people write like they're doctors, like a prescription. You can't read what their name is anyway. I stopped with the manual board, and I go with a QR code that brings them right to my list.

I say, “Hey, you want this book for free? Scan here, and you get the download. You can get it on your phone with the free Bookfunnel app, and you can start reading it now if you want. Then you're on my newsletter list, and I can let you know what's going on.”

So I find that's way better because it's not forcing anyone to have to take a clipboard and write things down, and then you have to go in. Again, it's manual labor to go and enter it in.

Joanna: Just a QR code on a sheet of paper?

Mark: Yes. I mean, most people have a smartphone on them, so they can quickly and instantly sign up for your newsletter right then and there and get the free book right away.

So one of the things I've done as well as, so in my Canadian Werewolf series, for example, I have a little postcard and I have a sign with a QR code on it where you can download the eBook or the audiobook, or both, through Bookfunnel on a Bookfunnel landing page.

The QR code takes you right to the Bookfunnel landing page, and again, it's not you have to opt in for my newsletter because I don't want that. I'm sorry, I pay for enough deadbeats on my newsletter who do SFA. I'm sorry. I'm pushing really hard right now on my newsletter, and I'm happy.

Joanna: You have to get rid of people.

Mark: Well, if you're not going to click things, or respond, reply, or buy things from me, what the hell are you doing there? Get the hell out. You're just dead weight, and you're costing me a lot of money.

I don't mean to be mean, but I would rather have somebody who's engaged and wants to hear from me on the newsletter, because those are my people. The other people just got a free book once, and they're just costing me money.

So again, I don't force them. Like, even when they get the free download, it's an option. I don't have it clicked by default. They have to choose to be on my newsletter because I don't want to put them on my newsletter unless they want to be on my newsletter. So I give them the option.

Joanna: That's a good tip. The other thing I wonder about is the money side. So, of course, you mentioned at some events there is a bookseller there, and it will go through them.

Do you need to have a Square or some kind of mobile payment system?

Because a lot of people don't even have cash anymore?

Mark: Great question. I used to have one of the small Square Readers that tapped and connected to my phone, and it was just problematic software-wise. I ended up investing last year in one of the full size Square Readers that has the receipt printer built into it. It cost me a few hundred dollars.

The other thing I like about it is I can print a receipt for someone right there on the spot if they want one. I can also email or text all the things that they want. All my inventory is in there.

I used to, when it was a cash sale, I had a little notebook where I would say I took $10 for this book and whatever. I remember one time at one of the really busy events I was at, my sister was there helping, a lovely person, of course, but she makes me look organized.

She forgot to mark down which books I sold for cash, and so when I go to balance the next day, it was like, well, I have all this money, but I don't know what it was for.

So I even put my cash sales through the Square Reader, so I can, A, print a receipt for them. B, I used to print a second receipt for myself, throw it in the cash box, and I knew I sold that book for cash, or these books for cash.

Then in Square, I run a report the next day, and if it's just a cash sale or credit or debit or whatever it is, I can see exactly what I sold, and all of it's through the same system.

Joanna: That's really good.

Mark: So I have something I can load to ScribeCount because I'm tracking my sales in many different ways, but it's also a report that's useful for me to understand.

Then I can go back, no, I don't have my inventory properly managed where I go downstairs and look at the shelf and go, okay, I have 10 copies of this book, better order some soon because I've got so many shows coming up. Then you've got to do it in time, right?

I mean, I'm in Canada, so some of the printing is locally here with a printer. Some of it's printed with Amazon Canada, now that they print. When it's coming from Ingram in the States, crossing the border, you have to plan weeks in advance.

Joanna: I was thinking about this, so let's say Author Nation, you and I are both going to be there. It's in Las Vegas. I know they have, like in that hotel, they have a FedEx or business shipping site. I was even wondering about, I know it's Amazon, but on Amazon they have those lockers and things like that.

Do you do shipping to the points where you're flying to?

Mark: I have not yet done in-person sales outside of Canada because customs fees and getting nailed for selling across the border. So I have not yet. I have shipped books to the States to put in consignment with a vendor who's there, like a bookseller.

I've dropped shipped to hotels and stuff like that. I have also shipped books or brought books to give away. I learned that from Becca Syme. It's just too much of a hassle to fill out all the paperwork.

Joanna: I was wondering, I don't know if I'm going to do this, but one could do presales of special editions, get the money now, and then ship them all to Las Vegas, and then give the people who are there those signed copies that they have pre-bought.

You're not doing the sales on-site, you're doing them beforehand.

Mark: Maybe the pre-bought allows you to buy an extra bag that you check in that's filled with these books.

Joanna: No, I would just ship them to the location. I did notice that last time—

Mark: But you're paying taxes to your government, right? So if you're selling, you're paying taxes through your online system. It's already taken care of, so you don't have to worry about any of that. Which I think, Jo, that's genius. I love that.

Joanna: I mean, obviously in America, a lot of people are flying around to these things. Well, it's just something I was thinking about, I was thinking, what if I did this, how would I do it in a way that's easy enough?

I think this is the big thing, like even the Square Reader you said there, a couple of hundred dollars doesn't worry me, it's the how nervous I would be using it for the first time, or screwing it up when I had someone buying a Christmas present, or somebody who didn't really know how to do it.

I do think the pandemic has probably changed it, though. Now people know how to use QR codes, and everyone pays with a tap now, don't they?

Mark: They do, yes. The other thing too, I mean, I guess I have 20-plus years working in physical bookstores at Christmas. So I don't get stressed out by that. I mean, if I ever have a line like that again, oh my god, like Brandon Sanderson style lines, that'd be nice.

Joanna: You'll be happy. Also, people are nice. I mean, if your Reader isn't working, whatever, you sort it out. Okay, well, that's loads of my questions. Is there anything else you think we haven't covered that people need to know? I mean, obviously they can get your book, A Book in Hand, but is there anything else?

Well, let me bring something up, actually. I saw a post from an author who did Comic Con, I think, or one of these bigger conventions, and they said, “That's my last time. It's too exhausting.” So there's that energy management, as well as expensive, and it's like that “I'm done.” So that would be a question.

How do you manage your energy at these live events?

How are you like, okay, I've done enough events? Or are you just your Energizer Bunny self, and just go forever?

Mark: It is so tough because I'm an omnivert, and I do get exhausted from being on, because I look at it as being on. So that is tough. That is really, really hard. You have to know yourself and understand yourself and what you need.

You can't overextend yourself. That's so important. Whether it's trying to write books too fast, or whether it's trying to do in-person events when that's not your comfort level. So that's really an important thing.

I can't advise you to do anything other than listen to your body, and listen to your emotions, and listen to how you feel. It's like, I eat this thing and it feels something afterwards, stop eating that thing, right? So that's so important now.

Also, in a weird way, it exhausts me. Then I connect with somebody who's come back because they bought something last time. They're like, “Oh, you're here again. Good because I wanted to get a signed copy of the next book in the series,” or they even just talk to me about it. Again, I'm creating an experience for that reader.

When you create an experience for that person, that's marketing.

Dean Wesley Smith had shared one time that a print book is, on average, handled by seven people. So that print book that somebody bought from you and has signed from you, maybe they have a picture with you and that's exciting, that's something they're going to share.

That's the marketing. That's the seven points, you know what I mean? Your book cover is a billboard. That's really important.

Then the other thing that's funny, and Liz and I had this conversation, I did Frightmare in the Falls in Niagara Falls a few years ago that was far enough away I had to stay in a hotel overnight.

The table cost me a lot of money, and I had my stepdaughter come in one day on the Saturday. I could handle the Friday night and the Sunday myself because they were slower, but the Saturday was going to be a busy day. So I paid her to come in and spend the day with me.

I think I brought in maybe $1,500 or $1,600 in sales, and by the time I calculated the cost of my inventory, plus the costs of all the other costs, and the meals and whatever, I think I made $100 off that conference. It was like a three-day weekend.

Here's the thing. Liz goes, “Well, that was a huge waste.” I said, “Well, A, I'm ahead slightly.”

Yes, it was a lot of work for 100 bucks, but that was the event where the gentleman showed up in a werewolf costume. That was the event where new people who had never bought any of my books or even knew who I was, walked away with some of my books.

That event was a marketing campaign, no different than like an Amazon ad campaign, where your book is seen by somebody who may be interested in buying it.

So I say, okay, yes, I only walked away $100 richer from this event, but I have the experience, and I've given lots of people the experience of who Mark Leslie is, the name I write most of my stuff under.

That, again, is so frustrating because I can't point to anything and go, “Look, Liz, my sales went up magically on Amazon a week after.”

Joanna: Well, I think the other thing here, actually, this is important, and I've done this many times, is you—

Take photos that you can use for social media that make things look bigger than they actually are.

I mean, even my signings at Bookvault. You know, Bookvault is a printing factory. It's not like some sexy location, although, of course, book printing is very sexy.

Mark: It is very sexy.

Joanna: They've just got a room, well, it's not even a special room, it's like a corridor, and we set up a thing. The angle you take photos at can make things look much better.

Mark: They look amazing. I'm like, I can't wait to have that one day. Meanwhile, you're in a hallway, right?

Joanna: Yes, you're in a hallway. I mean, you and I, do you remember when we did Frankfurt Book Fair together? When you had hair.

Mark: Yes, I had some hair.

Joanna: You had some hair back then. There's some pictures of us at Frankfurt Book Fair.

Mark: The pictures are pretty amazing. It looks like a huge audience.

Joanna: Actually, we were in some random hall. There's loads of halls. I mean, it's a huge fair. There was hardly anyone there, but we did it, and the photos look really good. So, I mean, that's a little secret, I guess.

Mark: All six people in the audience looked way bigger.

Joanna: So I guess that's the other thing.

If you do an event, and you're doing it for marketing, make sure you get pictures.

Just get your friend or some passerby to kind of look as if you're signing or something, and then you can use that in social media, and that will help too.

Mark: Oh, for sure. I mean, and the same thing too, I've been at book events where nobody showed up. I was in Vancouver once at an independent bookstore for three hours signing copies of one of my books, Haunted Bookstores and Libraries: Tomes of Terror, and nobody showed up.

I didn't sell a single book to anybody, even though my publisher advertised it, I advertised it, and put it all on social media. I spent three hours hanging out with the staff and having a blast chatting with them, instead of being a miserable guy who was all upset because nobody came to my party.

I had a blast with these booksellers, and I'm positive they hand-sold my book when I left. Again, the experience we had together was richer than me just selling a few books that day.

Joanna: Yes, always be connecting. That's probably the quote of the day.

So we're almost out of time, but I did want to come to a sort of bigger question. Now, you and I co-wrote The Relaxed Author back in 2021. The reason we did that was we had a conversation, and one of the listeners were like, oh, you should write that book. So we did.

Mark: Thank you, Jo's listeners.

Joanna: At the time we wrote it was because authors were really stressed. At that point it was really the end of organic reach. The end of organic reach on Amazon. The end of organic reach on Facebook. It was a real shift to paid ads. There was a lot of angst about KU.

That was what was going on in that period. Now, I mean, that's kind of as normal now. The changes have really sped up. We've got generative AI and the impacts of that, and there's always stress in the author community. I wondered what your thoughts were on—

How can authors be more relaxed about change, in general?

Any thoughts on the impact of AI, given that you also work at Draft2Digital? Or your own personal thoughts?

Mark: It's a tough one because it's like exponential. The change is just growing at a faster rate than we can keep up with, and there's more things to be anxious about.

So the first thing is to take a deep breath. I know it's a weird question to ask, but I mean, it's like, how does this affect my goals and my long-term plans? Or am I just fixated on looking at a dashboard all day instead of getting the important work done?

I think people need that more. I need that more. Jo, I pick up the book sometimes because I get anxious about stuff, and I pick it up and go, oh yeah, we said some pretty smart things here. We should listen to ourselves every once in a while.

So if I have to remind myself to listen to the things, I mean, I can imagine that there's a lot of change.

So here's a couple things we know. The technology is not going to get put back in Pandora's box. It's not going to go back into the bottle. It's going to keep going, and it's going to grow, whether we ride the wave or we get swallowed by the wave.

So there may be ways to look at a new technology, and I know this is hard, especially in this divisive world we live in, but look at something with a mind not of “I don't like this because I've never tried this vegetable, but I think it tastes horrible, so I'm never going to try it.”

Try to look at it with an open mind.

Try to see if there's a way within your goal set and within the things that are important to you and that you value, whether it's your moralistic values, or the things that you just value in general.

Are there ways that you can leverage that for your author business in ways that can ease some of the pain points that you have?

Because we all have pain points, right? So you may never be somebody who's going to use a technology a certain way, but you may want to use it in another way that can ease you.

So for example, I've been using, thanks to you, and I got the code off of your website, the ProWritingAid, I got a discount on that. So I clean up my manuscript with ProWritingAid before I send it to a human editor because it saves me money, and probably saves my editor a lot of anxiety and ulcers.

It cleans up some of the boring, redundant stuff I always do, the habits I have as a writer. So there are ways that technology can help in so many different ways if we're willing to work with it.

I don't just mean use it, I mean work with it. I mean understand. No different than understanding how to operate a vehicle, no different than how to understand operating a word processing software.

I had to go from typewriter to Paperback Writer, then Word Perfect, then Microsoft Word, over the years. I started off pen and paper and then I went to typewriter, because I'm one of those old guys. So I see it's no different.

Sometimes we get so anxious about the extremes of what this could do, as opposed to looking at what it could do. You know, it could be bad, but it could also do these things for us. It's a hard thing for us to do, so deep breath is usually where I often start.

I'm a guy with high blood pressure, and I get excited very easily, so I have to monitor this. So I'm speaking from personal experience, stop and take a deep breath.

Joanna: Yes, and also, I think this does come back to, as you mentioned it earlier, obviously the double down on being human and in-person events. To me, there are things that AI is useful for. Certainly for me, cover design.

You mentioned editing there. Marketing, oh my goodness. I mean —

I think most authors are going to be very happy the day we can just tell an AI agent, “Here's my book. Please go market it.” That will be amazing, and that's coming.

Mark: Authors hate marketing. It stresses them out.

Joanna: Exactly, and so there are things that we very, very much would like that to do.

But in-person events. I mean, for sure, the robots will come at some point, but there still is going to be a human sitting behind a table at a human event, selling books to other humans.

You can't get much more human than selling books at physical events, I suppose.

Mark: I mean, it's one of the things that allows you to stand out in the digital slush pile, in the digital masses, is the real human. Now, I can talk about the story I wrote because I know it inside out because I spent 10 years writing this book, or whatever it was.

You know this better than anyone else, and so you can connect with people in a more meaningful way that even the technology that exists can't. It can't respond and interact and engage the way you can. You are the best marketing tool for your book.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Where can people find all your books and everything you do online?

Mark: Well, you can find me at MarkLeslie.ca. You can find links to me on all the social medias, etc. If you're looking for A Book in Hand, the preorder links for this book will be at MarkLeslie.ca/abookinhand. Nice and easy.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Mark. That was great.

Takeaways:

• In-person signings and events provide opportunities for authors to create connections with readers and offer unique experiences.
• Authors should focus on genuine connections with the right readers rather than making immediate sales.
• Book adjacent events, specialty shops, and local fairs are great venues for in-person events.
• Authors should prepare by promoting the event on social media and in newsletters, having merchandise and props that align with their brand, and engaging with other authors and vendors.
• Avoid being too salesy and instead focus on connecting with readers and helping them find the right books.
• In-person events can lead to long-term relationships and word-of-mouth recommendations. When selling books at in-person events, consider bringing a variety of genres and titles, including your own books and books by other authors.
• Use QR codes to make it easy for readers to sign up for your email list and receive free books or other incentives.
• Accept mobile payments to accommodate readers who may not carry cash.
• Manage your inventory and sales using tools like Square to track transactions and print receipts.
• Focus on creating a positive experience for readers and building connections with them.
• Embrace technology and AI to streamline processes and alleviate pain points in your author business.
• Take a deep breath and approach change with an open mind, considering how it aligns with your goals and values.
• In-person events provide an opportunity to stand out in the digital world and connect with readers on a personal level.

The post Selling Books In Person At Live Events With Mark Lefebvre first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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